THE 

DEVELOPMENT  OF  RELIGION 

A  STUDY  IN  ANTHROPOLOGY 
AND  SOCIAL  PSYCHOLOGY 


BY 
IRVING   KING,    Ph.D. 

STATE   UNIVERSITY  OF  IOWA 


OF   THF  \ 

UNIVERSITY    ) 


THE   MACMILLAN   COMPANY 
1910 

Aff  rights  reserved 


^«%4 


Copyright,  1910, 
By  the  MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 


Set  up  and  electrotyped.    Published  February,  1910. 


NortoDolr  '\^xt»9 

J.  8.  Gushing  Co.  —  Berwick  &  Smith  Oo. 

Norwood,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 


MY  FATHER 

AND 

MOTHER 


204121 


Of  yh£ 

^NiVERs/ry 

OF 


PREFACE 


As  the  subtitle  indicates,  this  volume  is  a  study  in  the 
social  psychology  of  primitive  religion.  It  is,  however,  far 
from  complete  as  first  planned.  It  was  the  original  intention 
to  include  a  number  of  topics  which  are  of  great  interest  to  the 
student  of  primitive  religion,  such  as  the  development  of 
sacrifice  and  the  origin  and  development  of  birth,  marriage, 
death,  and  burial  ceremonies.  Not  only  have  some  topics 
been  omitted ;  those  which  are  here  ofifered  to  the  public  are 
far  from  completely  worked  out.  They  have  been  written 
at  irregular  intervals  during  the  past  eight  years,  in  the 
midst  of  many  duties  which  tended  inevitably  to  destroy  the 
continuity  of  thought  as  well  as  to  render  a  thorough  working 
out  of  individual  problems  well-nigh  impossible.  Under 
these  circumstances  it  is  but  natural  that,  as  the  work  has 
proceeded,  there  should  have  been  a  change  in  interest  and, 
to  some  extent,  in  point  of  view. 

In  treating  the  various  phases  of  the  problem  the  author 
has  attempted  to  offer  sufficient  illustrations  to  lend  weight 
to  the  positions  he  has  taken.  It  has  not  seemed  best  to  try 
to  make  these  illustrations  exhaustive.  In  almost  every  in- 
stance those  offered  are  only  a  tithe  of  the  ones  which  might 
have  been  given. 

Nothing  set  forth  in  these  pages  is  presented  in  a  dogmatic 
spirit.  In  every  detail,  whether  of  fact  or  of  interpretation, 
the  author  holds  himself  subject  to  correction  and  criticism. 

vii 


viii  PREFACE 

While  it  is  scarcely  possible  but  that  some  errors  have  been 
incurred,  it  is  hoped  that  the  general  point  of  view  may 
appeal  to  students  of  anthropology,  sociology,  and  psy- 
chology as  suggestive  and  pertinent. 

As  regards  the  view-point  it  is,  in  a  word,  that  the  religious 
attitude  has  been  huilt  up  through  the  overt  activities  which 
appear  in  primitive  social  groups,  activities  which  were  either 
spontaneous  and  playful  or  which  appeared  with  reference  to 
meeting  various  practical  needs  of  the  life-process ;  and  that 
the  development  of  emotional  values  has  been  mediated 
through  the  fact  that  these  activities  were  in  the  main  social. 

Many  difficulties  have  naturally  attended  the  satisfactory 
working  out  of  this  view-point.  In  the  first  place,  social 
psychology  is  not  itself  a  clearly  defined  science  with  definite 
and  generally  accepted  principles  of  method.  It  is  hoped, 
however,  that  a  series  of  studies  of  this  sort,  even  though  they 
are  incomplete,  may  contribute  something  toward  a  clarifica- 
tion of  the  relation  of  psychology  to  anthropology  and  the 
social  sciences.  If  this  should  be  accomplished,  the  author 
will  be  entirely  satisfied,  even  though  every  one  of  his  own 
specific  conclusions  may  have  to  be  modified  or  even  rejected. 
It  may  be  said,  then,  that  the  primary  purpose  of  the  book 
is  to  contribute  something  toward  the  definition  of  social 
psychology  by  illustrating  the  application  of  psychological 
method  in  the  interpretation  of  the  data  of  a  relatively  limited 
field  of  social  phenomena.  The  author  is  quite  well  aware 
that  many  eminent  psychologists  would  dissent  from  this  con- 
ception of  psychology,  or  even  hold  that  there  is  no  such 
thing  as  a  psychological  method  in  the  sense  here  taken.  He 
does  not,  however,  feel  inclined  to  quarrel  over  questions  of 
terminology.  He  believes  firmly  that  there  is  a  method  of 
approach  to  the  problems  of  social  development  which  is 
most  suggestive,  and  it  is  to  him  immaterial  whether  or  not 


PREFACE 


IX 


that  method  may  properly  be  called  psychological.  It  is  the 
method  itself  which  interests  him  rather  than  the  name  that 
it  may  be  most  proper  to  apply  to  it. 

Another  serious  difficulty  attends  any  one  who,  outside 
the  world  of  anthropology,  presumes  to  interpret  the  data 
afforded  by  that  field.  One  who  has  first-hand  acquaintance 
with  some  of  the  natural  races,  and  especially  with  their 
languages,  naturally  looks  with  some  suspicion  upon  the 
attempts  of  the  psychologist  to  say  anything  worth  while 
regarding  primitive  custom  or  primitive  religion,  if,  indeed, 
he  even  takes  notice  of  such  attempts  at  all.  The  present 
writer,  however,  feels,  if  a  comparative  study  of  primitive 
religion  must  wait  for  a  scholar  acquainted  at  first-hand  with 
the  races  and  their  languages,  that  such  study  will  probably 
never  be  made.  He  cannot  believe  that  he  who  makes  such 
a  study,  equipped  only  with  the  point  of  view  of  the  anthro- 
pologist, is  less  likely  to  fall  into  serious  fallacies  than  is  the 
psychologist  who  gets  his  facts  at  second-hand.  What  is 
needed  is  a  friendly  cooperation  among  scholars  in  an  in- 
vestigation of  this  sort.  The  work  of  neither  the  anthropolo- 
gist nor  the  psychologist  can  be  complete  in  itself,  and  yet 
each  is  only  too  ready  to  regard  his  statements  as  the  final  ones. 
The  present  writer  has  been  very  clearly  conscious  of  the  limi- 
tations of  his  method,  but  he  is  frank  to  say  that  his  failure  to 
attain  satisfactory  results  in  many  cases  has  been  due  to  the 
very  character  of  the  observations  collected  by  the  anthro- 
pologist. Surely  some  training  in  psychology  would  have 
rendered  some  of  the  laborious  undertakings  of  the  student 
of  the  natural  races  much  more  fruitful  of  results.  There 
are  of  course  notable  exceptions,  but  it  is  certainly  true  that 
much  is  yet  to  be  desired  in  the  form  in  which  material 
regarding  the  customs  of  present-day  natural  races  is  at  pres- 
ent gathered  together. 


X  PREFACE 

The  author  is  indebted  to  the  editors  and  publishers  of 
various  philosophical  and  psychological  journals  for  permis- 
sion to  use  again  in  Chapters  II,  VIII,  X,  XI,  and  XIII  por- 
tions of  articles  which  have  already  been  offered  in  print. 
He  is  particularly  grateful  for  the  many  helpful  suggestions 
and  criticisms  of  friends  who  so  kindly  read  the  manuscript 
in  whole  or  in  part.  Particular  acknowledgment  is  due  Miss 
Lela  Douthart  of  Kansas  City,  Kansas,  who  rendered  valu- 
able and  generous  assistance  in  the  revision  of  the  manu- 
script for  the  press. 

State  University  of  Iowa, 
September  24,  1909. 


CONTENTS 


PAGES 

Preface .••,  vii-x 


CHAPTER  I 

Introduction  —  The  Possibility  and  the  Scope  of  the 
Psychology  of  Religion 

Necessity  of  a  preliminary  inquiry  into  the  nature  of  the  material  and 
the  possibility  of  a  psychological  treatment  —  Character  of  previous 
studies  in  this  field  —  The  differentia  of  the  religious  consciousness 
—  Can  it  be  stated  best  in  terms  of  content  or  of  function?  —  As  far 
as  content  goes,  leaving  preternatural  elements  (if  such  there  be) 
out  of  account,  religious  states  of  mind  do  not  appear  to  be  of  differ- 
ent species  from  other  aspects  of  experience  —  The  functional 
differentia  —  Preliminary  statement  of  the  religious  end  —  The  logic 
of  supernaturalism  and  its  relation  to  the  psychology  of  religion  — 
Impossibility  of  science's  recognizing  such  elements  or  factors  — 
Every  religious  experience,  from  the  very  fact  of  its  being  known  at 
all,  must  find  its  place  in  the  causal  series  of  natural  science  — 
Attempt  of  some  to  confine  the  scientific  treatment  of  religion  to 
its  *  content '  on  the  ground  that  religious  *  values '  lie  essentially 
beyond  the  pale  of  science  —  Criticism  of  this  position  —  *  Value ' 
as  well  as  'content'  has  a  natural  history,  or  at  least  as  much 
natural  history  as  it  is  possible  for  any  observable  fact  to  have  — 
Import  of  the  psychology  of  religion  for  the  practical  religionist  — 
For  the  theologian  —  For  the  philosopher  —  The  one-sidedness  of 
inquiries  into  the  nature  of  religion  which  ignores  psychology  — 
The  psychological  problem  restated I-23 

CHAPTER  II 
Preliminary  Questions  regarding  the  Evolution  of  Religion 

The  first  problem  that  of  defining  more  accurately  the  nature  of  the 
content  which  may  be  supposed  to  have  undergone  an  evolution  — 
The  assumption  of  some  scholars  that  this  is  an  instinct  or  other 
innate  capacity — This  involves  a  total  misapprehension  of  the 

xi 


xii  CONTENTS 

PAGES 

meaning  of  the  term  *  instinct '  as  it  is  ordinarily  used  in  biological 
science  —  The  term  has  probably  been  seized  upon  to  give  a  certain 
glamour  of  science  to  the  notion  that  there  is  a  primitive  or  innate 
rehgious  *  sense '  —  Marshall's  instinct  theory  apparently  more  sci- 
entific—  And  yet  it  is  incredible  that  an  instinct  opposed  to  all 
consciously  felt  self-interests  could  ever  have  developed  —  Difficulty, 
on  this  theory,  of  accounting  for  religion  as  a  conscious  experience 

—  The  religious  consciousness  more  than  the  parallelistic  accompa- 
niment of  instinctive  acts  —  While  the  history  of  religion  may  pre- 
suppose a  sort  of  original  or  innate  religious  *  sense '  as  its  starting- 
point,  the  science  of  religion  must  try  to  break  it  up  into  simpler 
elements — The  naive  use  of  psychological  terminology  in  the  sci- 
ence of  religion. 

The  religious  consciousness  is  of  the  valuational  type  —  May  be 
described  as  an  attitude  —  Definition  of — The  possible  truth  in  the 
theories  criticised  above  —  The  common  element  of  all  religions  is 
this  appreciative  or  valuating  attitude  —  A  relatively  simple  aspect 
of  consciousness  —  TJiis  is  the  content^  the  evolution  of  which  we 
are  to  explain  —  In  the  evolution  of  religion  we  probably  do  not 
have  to  deal  with  any  absolute  increase  in  mentality  but  only  with 
the  building  up  of  complex  psychical  attitudes  —  Not  much  increase 
in  absolute  mental  capacity  since  the  time  of  primitive  man  —  Atti- 
tudes in  general,  and  the  religious  attitude  in  particular,  built  up 
in  each  generation  through  the  objective  conditions  of  the  life- 
process— We  do  not,  therefore,  need  to  presuppose  any  funda- 
mental changes  in  mentality. 

This  brings  us  to  the  second  preliminary  problem  ;  namely,  that 
of  the  conditions  which  have  mediated  the  developmental  process 

—  These  are  held  to  be  the  overt  activities  of  the  life-process  — 
Attitudes  are  the  outcome  of  these  activities  rather  than  their  cause 

—  The  consequent  close  connection  between  the  ethnology  and  the 
psychology  of  religion  —  The  problem  of  the  evolution  of  religion 
is  then  that  of  showing  how  this  specific  type  of  consciousness  has 
been  built  up,  or  differentiated,  from  a  matrix  of  overt  activity  and 
relatively  objective  phases  of  consciousness      ....         24-43 

CHAPTER  III 

The  Consciousness  of  Value 

The  primacy  of  the  valuational  consciousness  —  Its  relation  to  the  active 
aspects  of  experience  —  The  primitive  activities  of  the  life-process 
and  the  genesis  of  the  value-consciousness  —  Relation  of  custom  to 


CONTENTS  xiii 

PAGES 

valuation  —  Development  of  customs  from  impulsive,  instinctive, 
and  practical  activities  of  primitive  man  —  Some  customs  the  mere 
accumulation  of  chance  variations  in  elementary  life-activities  — 
Illustrations  —  Others  the  result  of  more  or  less  practical  recogni- 
tion of  relation  of  means  to  end  —  Illustrations  —  Others  the  out- 
come of  emotional  overflow  during  temporarily  impeded  action  — 
Illustrations  —  Influence  of  the  play  impulse  in  the  development  of 
custom  —  General  emotional  consequences  of  the  organization  of 
activity  about  various  objects  of  attention        ....         44-61 

CHAPTER  IV 
The  Genesis  of  the  Religious  Attitude 

The  religious  attitude  a  special  development  from  the  valuational  con- 
sciousness—  Possible  causes  of  this  specialization  of  values — The 
hypothesis  of  social  influence  —  Import  of  the  social  atmosphere  in 
the  determination  of  general  human  characteristics  —  In  the  pre- 
ceding chapters  overt  activities,  or  customs,  were  seen  to  lie  back 
of  the  consciousness  of  value  —  We  may  now  add  that  these  activi- 
ties are  in  the  main  social  —  The  social  group,  at  any  rate,  may 
greatly  stimulate  the  development  of  valuation  —  The  social  organ- 
ism is  the  primitive  man's  universe  —  Activities  arising  within  it 
furnish  the  matrix  from  which  higher  concepts  of  worth  may  emerge 
—  Illustrations  —  A  loose  social  structure  mediates  vague  and  evan- 
escent values  and  vice  versa  —  Illustrations  from  the  West  Africans, 
the  Eskimo,  the  Australians,  the  North  American  Indians  —  Gen- 
eral illustrations  of  the  relation  of  value  to  social  types  of  activity, 
e.g.  among  the  primitive  Semites,  Hurons,  Kafirs,  Dyaks,  Navaho, 
West  Africans  —  Relation  of  modern  religious  consciousness  to  ^ 
social  activity 62-87 

CHAPTER  V 
The  Origin  of  Religious  Practices 

Religious  acts  originally  social  acts  or  customs  of  various  sorts  —  Reli- 
gion not  merely  modelled  upon  previous  social  processes  and  insti- 
tutions —  Is  rather  an  organic  part  of  the  general  social  milieu  — 
Illustration  of  this  fact  in  the  well-known  connection  of  primitive 
religion  with  governmental  institutions  ;  e.g.  in  the  religions  of 
antiquity,  among  the  Eskimo,  the  Malays,  Pueblo  and  Kwakiutl 
Indians,  the  negro  races  —  Meaning  of  the  so-called  *  general 
religiosity '  of  primitive  life  —  Dependence  of  religious  rites  upon 


xiv  CONTENTS 


PAGES 

social  interests  and  structure  illustrated  by  the  Todas,  West  Africans, 
Kafirs,  Masai  —  Relation  of  religious  ceremonies  to  the  general 
social  and  practical  activities  of  a  group  —  These  latter  seem  to  have 
a  definite  and  easily  explainable  natural  history  —  All  gradations 
from  the  purely  playful  and  practical  to  the  religious  —  Illustrations 
of  this  gradation :  Pueblo  natal  ceremonies,  Iroquois  festivals  and 
dances,  feasts  of  the  Thompson  Indians,  social  and  semi-religious 
activities  of  various  negro  tribes— ^ The  moonlight  dances  of  the 
Bushman  interesting  illustrations  of  the  purely  playful  origin  of  cere- 
monial dances  —  Ordinary  social  intercourse  the  basis  of  some 
Japanese  ceremonials  —  Other  illustrations  —  The  remarkable  case 
of  the  Todas  —  Their  religious  ceremonials  clearly  extensions  of 
practical  and  social  processes  —  Ceremonials  of  the  primitive  Sem- 
ites, the  Navaho,  the  Moqui,  and  the  early  Romans  show  like  char- 
acteristics—  Conclusion S8-133 

CHAPTER  VI 

The  Mysterious  Power 

The  primitive  belief  in  a  mysterious  pov^rer  illustrated  by  the  Algonkin 
'concept,'  manitou  —  This  belief,  with  variations,  widely  prevalent 
among  the  natural  races  —  A  quasi-mechanical,  impersonal  potency 
—  Probably  underlies  many  types  of  primitive  worship  —  Further 
description  of  the  Algonkin  belief —  Called  wakonda  by  the  Siouan 
tribes  —  Associated  with  the  striking  characteristics  of  animals  — 
^^  The  explanation  of  all  human  successes  —  Called  by  the  Iroquois 
orenda  —  Held  by  other  Indian  stocks  —  Has  been  frequently  mis- 
interpreted by  observers  —  The  same  belief  occurs  in  Melanesia, 
New  Zealand,  and  other  South  Pacific  Islands  —  Although  it  is 
here  often  associated  with  ghosts  and  spirits,  it  is  yet  quite  imper- 
sonal and  mechanical  in  its  action  —  Differences  between  the  Mel- 
anesian  and  the  Indian  belief  —  Not  a  development  of  ghost 
worship  —  Presence  of  the  same  '  concept '  among  other  primitive 
peoples,  e.g.  the  Bantu,  Masai,  the  nomad  tribes  of  northern  Asia  — 
Possibly  present  among  the  Australians  —  Facts  that  apparently 
support  such  a  view  —  An  examination  of  many  of  their  so-called 
magical  rites  from  this  point  of  view  —  Its  relation  to  the  enforce- 
ment of  custom  —  In  the  Intichiuma  ceremonies  —  In  beliefs  re- 
garding the  local  totem  centres  —  In  the  beliefs  regarding  the  *  bull- 
roarers  '  —  Something  analogous  to  the  same  *  concept '  appears  to 
have  been  present  in  the  primitive  religion  of  the  Romans  —  Sug- 
gestions of,  among  the  early  Semites  —  Conclusion  as  to  the  wide 
prevalence  of  the  notion  —  Its  relation  to  religion  and  to  magic. 


CONTENTS  XV 

PAGES 

A  truly  primitive  *  concept '  —  Conditions  which  may  have  pro- 
duced it  —  More  naive  than  animism  —  The  expression  of  the  most 
elementary  '  take-care '  attitude,  which  need  not  have  been  associated 
with  spirits  at  first  —  Easy  to  infer  the  presence  of  a  mysterious 
power  in  whatever  attracts  attention;  e.g.  in  the  soughing  of  the 
wind,  the  cunning  or  strength  of  animals,  etc.  —  Illustrations  which 
possibly  throw  some  light  upon  its  origin  and  variations  —  Not  a 
religious  *  concept  *  and  yet  it  has  played  a  part  in  the  development 
of  religion  and  especially  in  the  evolution  of  the  belief  in  a  deity  — 
Survivals  of  this  primitive  philosophy  in  modern  culture  .        .     134-164 


CHAPTER  VII 
Magic  and  Religion 

The  essential  nature  of  primitive  religion  may  be  made  clearer  by  con- 
trasting it  with  magic  —  Frazer's  theory  of  the  relation  of  magic  to 
religion  stated  and  criticised — Statement  and  criticism  of  Jevons's 
theory — The  problem  that  of  determining  the  conditions  which  lie 
back  of  magical  and  religious  practices  —  Many  savage  customs 
frequently  classed  under  magic  are  quite  spontaneous  reactions  of 
the  primitive  man  to  various  situations  of  strain  and  relaxation  — 
Only  with  the  lapse  of  time  are  such  acts  connected  with  the  idea 
of  controlling  certain  sequences  of  events  in  the  world  of  nature  or 
human  life  —  Development  of  the  theory  and  practice  of  sympa- 
thetic magic  from  these  primitive  and  direct  responses  of  the  man 
to  his  environment  —  Much  of  the  substrate  of  habit  and  custom 
cannot  be  called,  strictly  speaking,  either  magic  or  rehgion,  although 
it  is  common  to  interpret  much  of  it  as  magic  —  The  so-called  axiom 
that  *  like  produces  like,'  if  it  is  actually  held  by  primitive  man,  is 
more  likely  an  afterthought  than  the  cause  of  magical  practices  — 
This  substrate  of  primitive  naive  activity  is  evidently  tbe  basis  of 
much  of  the  so-called  magic  of  the  Australians. 

In  the  case  of  magic,  we  have  the  same  basis  of  playful  and  of  prac- 
tical attitudes  which  were  found  to  be  associated  with  the  begin- 
nings of  religion  —  The  two,  however,  express  different  points  of 
view  with  reference  to  the  world  —  The  latter  seems  to  have  sepa- 
rated from  the  former  largely  under  the  influence  of  social  stimu- 
lation— This  is  suggested  in  the  status  of  the  sorcerer  among 
almost  all  primitive  peoples  —  He  is  usually  a  person  possessed  of 
secret  powers  and  a  sinister  disposition  as  over  against  the  priest, 
the  public  functionary  —  The  individualistic  character   of  magic 


xvi  CONTENTS 


illustrated  by  the  Todas,  Niger  tribes,  Kafirs,  Eskimo,  Ojibwa, 
Australians,  and  many  others  that  might  be  given  —  Further  con- 
firmation in  the  supposed  relation  between  magic  and  disease  — 
This  distinction  between  priest  and  sorcerer  prevails  in  practically 
all  primitive  society  —  Religion,  social;  magic,  antisocial  —  Illustra- 
tions—  Reminiscences  of  the  conflict  of  religion  with  sorcery  in 
the  modern  conflict  of  religion  with  science  —  Further  illustrations 
of  the  mysterious  and  private  character  of  magic  —  Unfamiliar 
peoples  usually  supposed  to  be  highly  gifted  in  sorcery  —  The 
magician  usually  acquires  his  powers  through  his  own  subjectivity, 
or  at  least  in  ways  lying  outside  of  social  agencies  —  Various  illus- 
trations of  —  Certain  marked  peculiarities  of  magic  seem  to  be 
traceable  to  its  isolation  from  the  stimulus  of  positive  social  factors 

—  The  possibility  of  religion's  availing  itself  of  magical  expe- 
dients            165-203 

CHAPTER  VIII 

Further  Considerations  regarding  the  Evolution  of  the 
Religious  Attitude 

If  the  religious  attitude  is  a  special  differentiation  from  a  matrix  of 
social  interests  and  activities,  the  question  arises  as  to  the  sense 
in  vsrhich  it  may  be  possible  to  trace  an  evolution  in  religion  — 
Some  have  approached  the  problem  possessed  by  the  idea  that  they 
were  to  discover  the  successive  unfoldings  of  some  primitive  in- 
stinct, or  the  progressive  revelation  of  some  perfected  divine  truth 

—  These  theories  based  upon  a  superficial  biological  analogy  — 
Social  phenomena  too  complex  to  be  arranged  with  much  assur- 
ance in  a  developmental  series  —  The  determination  of  successive 
stages  of  religious  development  presupposes  the  ability  to  compare 
and  relate  social  backgrounds  —  The  peculiar  difficulty  attaching 
to  such  a  task  —  Diversity  in  primitive  social  development  —  What 
shall  be  the  criterion?  —  Variations  in  religion  as  dependent  upon 
social  backgrounds  —  From  this  it  would  seem  to  follow  that  differ- 
ent types  of  primitive  religion  are  quite  discrete  and,  far  from  being 
due  to  the  unfolding  of  an  original  instinct  common  to  all  man- 
kind, have  really  no  direct  relation  to  each  other  —  Illustrations  of 
this  apparent  discreteness  —  Different  religious  forms  go  back  to 
different  social  situations  rather  than  to  preceding  religious  forms 

—  This  more  largely  true  of  primitive  religions  than  of  the  modern 
types  —  In  the  latter  a  degree  of  stability  of  content  and  organiza- 


CONTENTS  xvii 

PAGES 

tion  is  attained  that  seems  to  give  them  a  certain  independence  of 
immediate  social  conditions  as  well  as  a  sort  of  continuity  and 
momentum  that  enables  them  to  develop  along  diverse  lines,  each 
peculiar  to  itself — These  diverse  strains  of  religious  development 
have,  each  of  them,  their  own  individual  merit — No  religion  can 
include  all  possible  and  legitimate  values  —  Two  further  points  re- 
garding the  development  of  different  religious  strains  —  First  as 
regards  the  method  of  transmission  from  one  generation  to  another 
—  This  dependent  upon  the  transmission  of  some  sort  of  a  body  of 
activity  or  of  religious  customs,  together  with  an  appropriate  concep- 
tual framework,  i.e.  upon  social  heredity  —  And  secondly,  as  regards 
the  means  of  the  elaboration  in  successive  generations  —  This  in 
large  measure  dependent  upon  the  growth  of  individuality — The 
development  of  the  higher  religious  consciousness  is  always  corre- 
lated with  some  development  of  personality  either  in  extension  or 
intention. 204-222 


CHAPTER  IX 

Origin  and  Development  of  Concepts  of  Divine  Personages 

(I)  Only  certain  phases  of  this  extremely  complex  problem  will  be  ex- 
amined here,  those  especially  which  have  to  do  with  the  relation  of 
deities  to  various  economic  and  social  interests — This  relation  is 
deeper  than  a  mere  reflection  of  the  cultural  level  of  the  worshippers 

—  It  is  rather  the  expression  of  certain  aspects  of  social  valuation, 
and  is  organic  with  other  modes  of  social  reaction  —  (II)  The  prob- 
lem of  the  natural  history  of  deities  is  the  problem  of  why  social 
values  are  to  some  extent  expressed  in  terms  of  superior  personali- 
ties —  Deities  often  supposed  to  be  the  peculiar  differentia  of  re- 
ligion as  over  against  magic  —  This  view  is  inadequate,  however, 
since  deities  are  only  one  of  the  means  of  expressing  religious  valu- 
ation —  Furthermore,  the  primitive  mechanical  conception  of  the 
world  should  not  be  separated  so  radically  from  the  notion  of  the 
world  as  pervaded  by  spirits  —  We  must  avoid  at  the  outset  adopt- 
ing concepts  that  are  too  fixed  —  The  well-recognized  tendency  of 
all  social  groups  to  socialize  all  that  claims  their  attention  is  suffi- 
cient as  a  point  of  departure  —  The  values  which  are  thus  social- 
ized may  arise  from  almost  every  phase  of  human  life  and  association 

—  Must  guard  against  the  tendency  to  seek  the  origin  of  deities 
within  a  too  narrow  set  of  conditions  —  The  primary  question  for 
psychology  is,  then,  as  to  why  certain  things  have  attracted  atten- 


xviii  CONTENTS 


tion  in  primitive  society  —  This  usually  due  to  the  fact  that  they  in 
some  way  appear  to  be  connected  with  man's  welfare  —  They  are 
the  objects  of  food  value,  those  connected  with  protection,  repro- 
duction, and  the  like,  animals,  plants,  stones,  disease,  etc.  —  The 
basis  of  attention  always  some  more  *ot  less  intimate  relation  to 
the  group  —  Interest  in  ancestors  and  spirits  usually  goes  back 
to  some  supposed  connection  with  the  original  interests  of  the  life- 
process —  (III)  From  this  relation  of  deities  to  acute  social  inter- 
ests we  may  be  able  to  dispose  of  the  so-called  remnants,  in  primitive 
life,  of  higher  conceptions  of  the  deity  —  These  vague,  far-off  gods 
rather  stranded  remnants  of  times  when  the  interests  of  the  group 
were  different  from  the  interests  of  the  present,  not  necessarily  higher 
gods  —  Illustrated  by  the  deistic  ideas  of  theTodas  —  ^^a/ deities 
are  always  associated  with  matters  of  vital  social  concern — Illus- 
trations—  (IV)  Relations  of  these  objects  of  social  interest  to  the 
'concept'  of  the  'mysterious  potency' — The  first  germinal  deities 
were  those  objects  or  persons  supposed  to  have  '  power '  —  Illustra- 
tions—  (V)  Animals  and  persons  are  in  various  ways  associated 
with  supposed  manifestations  of  power  —  It  is  an  associating  rather 
than  personifying  process  —  Illustrations  —  Evidences  of  the  mystic 
potency  idea  in  the  case  of  well-developed  deities  —  (VI)  Further- 
more, the  continued  reaction  of  the  social  group  upon  the  values 
of  the  life-process  tends,  inevitably,  to  cast  them  into  personal 
moulds  —  Hence  the  so-called  culture-hero  —  Illustrations  of,  among 
the  Australians  —  The  *  All-father '  concept  of  these  people  is  clearly 
a  social  product,  with  many  of  the  attributes  of  the  true  deity, 
although  not  worshipped  to  any  extent  —  Culture-heroes  of  the 
Todas,  of  the  North  American  Indians  —  In  many  cases  clearly  not 
a  divinity  —  Rather  illustrates  how  a  social  group  thinks  of  what- 
ever interests  it  in  vital  ways  in  terms  of  the  work  of  conscious 
beings  of  some  sort  —  The  gradual  transition  from  the  culture-hero 
and  low  trickster  to  the  real  deity  —  All  these  facts  lend  weight  to 
the  hypothesis  that  deities  are  social  constructions  —  (VII)  The 
social  body  is  operative,  not  merely  in  producing  the  first  associa- 
tions of  value  and  personality,  but  also  in  the  higher  development 
of  the  deistic  concept  —  In  every  respect  it  is  the  result  of  social 
activities  and  modes  of  thought  —  Various  aspects  of  this  higher 
influence  enumerated  and  illustrated 223-260 


CONTENTS  xix 


CHAPTER  X 

The  Problem  of  Monotheism  and  of  the  Higher  Ethical 
Conceptions  of  the  Deity 

PAGES 

The  primitive  world  one  of  values  and  social  appreciations  as  well  as  of 
brute  facts — This  the  context  within  which  deistic  concepts  have 
grown  up  —  Religious  concepts  in  general,  and  those  of  deities  in 
particular,  are  symbols  of  these  *  appreciations '  rather  than  descrip- 
tions of  objective  fact  —  The  relation  of  psychology  to  the  supposed 
objectivity  of  the  deity  —  Is  the  view-point  here  presented  adequate 
for  the  interpretation  of  the  loftier  concepts  of  the  deity?  —  The 
problem  of  the  beginnings  of  monotheism  given  an  artificial  diffi- 
culty by  our  tendency  to  read  back  into  its  earlier  stages  the 
modern  conception  —  We  also  tend  to  deny  a  natural  history  to 
those  of  our  concepts  which  we  deem  of  most  worth  —  The  feeling 
that  they  must  have  been  perfect  from  the  first,  or  else  their  present 
worthfulness  will  be  impugned — The  atmosphere  of  the  social 
group  is,  however,  the  point  of  departure  for  the  interpretation  of 
exalted  as  well  as  ordinary  types  of  concepts  —  The  notion  of  a 
supreme  god  may  appear  under  favoring  conditions  in  relatively 
low  types  of  religion  —  In  the  absence  of  these  conditions  it  may 
be  absent  in  more  highly  developed  types  —  All  essential  elements 
of  a  monotheistic  deity  present  in  the  merely  tribal  god  —  Psycho- 
logical vs.  speculative  monotheism  —  Thus  the  beginnings  of  the 
higher  conceptions  of  the  deity  among  the  Hebrews  are  not  en- 
tirely unique  or  unexplainable  —  Sketch  of  its  development  —  A 
practical  rather  than  a  metaphysical  conception  —  A  more  com- 
plex problem,  in  the  case  of  this  people,  is  the  development  of  the 
ethical  character  of  Yahweh  —  And  yet  it  is  not  insoluble  —  Its  key 
to  be  found  in  the  development  of  the  character  of  the  people  them- 
selves, and  especially  in  the  expansion  of  reflective  thought  on  the 
part  of  the  prophets  —  In  this  way  psychology  seeks  to  show  that 
the  character  of  Yahweh  was  gradually  built  up  rather  than,  as  a  pre- 
existing something,  was  little  by  little  revealed —  Many  positive  ele- 
ments in  primitive  religion  which  furnish  a  basis  for  such  a 
construction  —  While  primitive  deities  may  be  said  to  be  the  reflec- 
tions of  the  character  of  their  worshippers,  this  character  is  not 
necessarily  altogether  sordid  —  Illustrations  of  positive  values  in 
primitive  life  —  Phases  of  primitive  Semitic  religion  which  furnished 
points  of  departure  for  the  prophets — Every  distinguishing  char- 
acter of  the  Yahweh  of  the  prophets  may  be  traced  to  concepts  and 
appreciations  of  life  incipient  in  the  general  social  milieu  of  the 


XX  CONTENTS 

PAGES 

early  Hebrews — The  question  of  why  a  similar  development  did 
not  occur  among  other  Semitic  peoples  or  among  other  nations  of 
antiquity  is  to  be  answered,  as  must  be  answered  all  questions 
regarding  variations  in  both  the  biological  and  the  social  spheres, 
viz.  that  all  of  them  are  ultimately  unexplainable     .        .        .     261-286 

CHAPTER  XI 

Religion  and  Morals,  with  Special  Reference  to  the 
australia-ns 

(I)  The  complexity  of  the  problem  of  the  relation  of  religion  to  morals 

—  The  phase  of  the  problem  to  be  here  discussed  is  that  of  the 
significance  of  the  common  basis  of  custom  underlying  primitive 
religion  and  primitive  morality  —  (II)  Early  ideas  regarding  the 
moral  degradation  of  the  Australians  explained  —  Necessity  of 
judging  them  in  terms  of  their  own  social  structure  —  Not  here 
the  question  as  to  whether  this  was  of  a  high  or  low  order  —  Per- 
sonal virtues,  honesty,  fortitude,  and  self-restraint,  modesty,  sexual 
morality,  treatment  of  wives  and  children,  of  the  old  and  infirm, 
cannibalism,  watchfulness  of  the  old  over  the  conduct  of  the  young 

—  Questions  of  right  and  wrong  arose  chiefly  in  connection  with 
their  strict  tribal  regulations — Many  admirable  qualities  appeared 
in  their  social  life  before  contact  with  whites  was  common  — 
(III)  Concluding  remarks  on  the  problem  of  this  chapter        .     287-305 

CHAPTER  XII 

Apparent  Connection  of  Religion  with  Pathological 
Experiences 

Attention  thus  far  centred  upon  the  method  by  which  the  different 
aspects  of  the  religious  attitude  have  been  built  up  —  The  question 
now  raised  as  to  the  status  of  the  religious  form  of  consciousness  in 
the  general  mental  economy  —  Recent  tendency  to  lay  stress  upon 
the  pathological  in  religion  —  Is  it  an  essential  characteristic  of 
religious  experience?  —  Difficulty  of  answering  this  question  de- 
pendent partly  upon  the  complexity  of  religious  phenomena  and 
partly  upon  uncertainty  as  to  the  actual  limitations  of  the  patho- 
logical—  We  shall  here  consider  the  pathological  simply  as  the 
unusual — Unusual  mental  and  motor  phenomena  have  certainly 
been  common  in  all  religions  —  These  are  taken  by  the  religious 
mind  as  proofs  of  the  reaUty  of  its  valuations  —  Such  phenomena 


CONTENTS  xxi 

P'  JES 

cannot  be  discredited  on  the  ground  that  they  are  not  manifesta- 
tions of  genuine  religion  —  The  possibility  that  a  genuine  religious 
attitude  may  have  really  undesirable  consequences  when  judged  by 
the  rest  of  the  life-process  —  Two  problems:  What  aspect  of  the 
religious  attitude  has  tended  to  foster  unusual  mental  and  motor 
phenomena?  and,  Are  these  phenomena  merely  pathological,  or 
have  they  had  any  positive  value  in  the  development  of  religion?  — 
The  na*are  of  religious  appreciations  and  the  quasi-hypothesis  of 
supernaturalism  have  tended  to  produce  such  experiences  —  The 
second  problem  —  We  may  take  up  in  this  connection  the  place 
of  the  so-called  subconscious  in  the  unusual  experiences  of  religion 
—  If  the  subconscious  is  regarded  as  a  connecting  link  between  the 
individual  and  preternatural  powers,  it  is  mere  primitive  philosophy 
in  the  guise  of  modern  science  —  Nevertheless,  the  phenomena  of 
the  subconscious  may  have  some  significance  in  the  development 
of  higher  religious  valuations  —  General  statement  of  the  nature  of 
subconscious  processes  —  Their  relation  to  the  rest  of  the  mental 
life  —  The  place  of  subconscious  factors  in  the  valuational  expe- 
rience —  In  unusual  experiences  generally  —  Possesses  a  certain 
positive  value  for  all  conscious  processes,  although  not  intrinsically 
superior  to  them  —  The  place  of  mental  pathology  in  the  develop- 
ment of  individuality  —  Modern  religious  types  differ  largely  from 
the  primitive  in  the  increased  importance  in  the  former  of  the 
individual  person  —  This  has  not,  however,  destroyed  the  essential 
sociality  of  religion,  but  has  rather  worked  out  its  intention  —  Vari- 
ous illustrations  —  The  case  of  William  Monod,  the  modern  French 
messiah  —  Social  acceptance  continues  to  be  the  test  of  religious 
truth  rather  than  certain  supposedly  unusual  experiences  —  Con- 
clusion      y^-Z37 

CHAPTER  XIII 

Religious  Valuation  and  Supernaturalism 

Notwithstanding  the  psychological  points  made  in  the  preceding  chap- 
ter, it  may  yet  be  true  that  religious  valuations  require  the  hypothe- 
sis of  a  supernatural  world  with  which  the  devotee  may  hold 
intercourse  —  The  question  perfectly  legitimate  —  The  place  of  the 
religious  consciousness  in  the  life-process  —  Religious  concepts  and  / 
appreciations,  even  when  regarded  as  merely  symbols  of  relation-  '' 
ships  and  meanings,  may  still  contribute  to  clarification  of  the 
problems  of  living  —  They  understate  rather   than   overstate   the 


xxii  CONTENTS 

PAGES 

nature  of  reality  —  The  theories  of  the  supernatural  world,  held  by 
the  early  Church,  were  purely  practical  hypotheses  rather  than 
metaphysical  interpretations  of  reality  —  The  following  ages  took 
them  in  the  latter  sense  —  Supernaturalism  as  mere  symbolism  will 
probably  always  have  a  place  in  the  religious  consciousness  —  It 
is  an  evidence  of  the  essential  sociality  of  human  nature  and  of  the 
sociality  of  religion,  as  one  of  the  expressions  of  human  nature     338-353 

Bibliography 355"36i 

Index 363-371 


The  totality  of  causes  of  phenomena  is  inaccessible  to  human  understand- 
ing, but  the  necessity  of  finding  causes  is  innate  in  the  human  soul.  The 
human  mind,  without  entering  into  the  multiplicity  and  complexity  of  the 
conditions  of  phenomena,  each  separate  one  of  which  may  appear  as  a  cause, 
grasps  at  the  first,  most  likely  approximation,  and  says,  "  Here  is  a  cause !  " 
.  .  .  There  are  no  causes  of  a  historical  event,  and  there  can  be  none, 
except  the  only  cause  of  all  causes.  But  there  are  laws  which  guide  the 
events,  and  these  are  partly  unknown  and  partly  guessed  at.  The  discovery 
of  these  laws  will  be  possible  only  when  we  absolutely  refrain  from  trying  to 
find  the  causes  in  the  will  of  one  man,  just  as  the  discovery  of  the  motion 
of  the  planets  became  possible  only  when  people  abandoned  the  conception 
of  the  stability  of  the  earth. — Tolstoy,  War  and  Peace. 


zxm 


DEVELOPMENT  OP  RELIGION 

CHAPTER   I 

INTRODUCTION 

THE  POSSIBILITY  AND  SCOPE  OF  THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF 
RELIGION 

Since  the  investigation  of  religious  experiences  and  reli- 
gious practices  is  even  yet  a  comparatively  new  line  of  psy- 
chological inquiry,  it  seems  not  inappropriate  to  introduce 
the  studies  which  follow  with  a  general  discussion  of  the  na- 
ture and  the  extent  of  the  subject-matter  and  with  an  inquiry 
into  the  presuppositions  necessary  to  such  a  treatment.  We 
shall  therefore  inquire  briefly  into  the  nature  of  the  material, 
the  extent  to  which  it  is  susceptible  of  a  psychological  state- 
ment, and,  finally,  into  the  relation  of  such  a  treatment  of 
religious  phenomena  to  the  problems  of  practical  religion, 
to  theology,  and  to  the  philosophy  of  religion. 

In  the  first  place,  then,  what  is  the  material  with  which  the 
psychology  of  religion  may  properly  deal  ?  In  what  respect, 
if  at  all,  is  it  distinguishable  from  the  material  of  gen- 
eral psychology:  or  does,  indeed,  the  psychology  of  religion 
have  any  valid  status,  as  a  field  of  investigation  apart  from 
the  content  of  general  psychology  ?  If  it  can  be  differentiated, 
shall  it  be  on  the  side  of  content  or  on  the  side  of  the  functions 
served  by  certain  contents  which  appear  in  other  relations  as 
well  as  in  those  which  are  recognized  as  religious  ?  Different 
investigators  have  already  taken  up  various  specific  phases 
of  the  subject  with  but  slight  recognition  of  the  necessity 


2  DEVELOPMENT   OF   RELIGION 

of  answering  these  questions  before  attempting  to  deal  ade- 
quately with  particular  problems. 

/  For  instance,  certain  emotional  states  have  been  studied 
I  very  thoroughly,  experiences  such  as  the  exaltation  or  the 
ecstasy  of  the  mystic,  the  trance  state  and  other  kindred 
phenomena,  all  of  which  are  clearly  paralleled  by  much  that 
is  well  known  to  students  of  abnormal  psychology.*  Many 
striking  religious  experiences  have  been  examined,  more  or 
less  carefully,  and  their,  organization  and  mode  of  develop- 
ment have  been  stated  in  ordinary  psychological  terms. 
A  notable  instance,  of  many  that  might  be  mentioned,  is 
Royce's  study  of  John  Bunyan,  published  some  years  ago.^ 
Other  students  have  investigated  the  phenomena  of  'con- 
version.' These  phenomena  have  been  examined  with  ref- 
erence to  their  character,  the  manner  and  time  of  their  appear- 
ance, and  the  attempt  has  been  made,  with  some  success, 
to  connect  them  with  various  periods  of  mental  and  physical 
development,  to  correlate  them,  if  possible,  with  other  recog- 
nized aspects  of  the  life-process.^  Some  psychologists  have 
traced  here  and  there  a  recognized  law  of  mental  operation  in 
these  same  religious  states ;  as,  for  example,  that  of  suggestion 

*  Cf.  Granger,  The  Soul  of  a  Christian;  William  James,  Varieties  of  Re- 
ligious Experience;  J.  H.  Leuba,  **  Tendances  fondamentales  des  mystiques 
Chretiens,"  Revue  Philo so phique,  Vol.  LIV,  pp.  1-36,  441-487;  and  "On 
the  psychology  of  a  group  of  Christian  mystics,"  Mind,  N.  S.,  Vol.  XIV, 
pp.  15-27;  Delacroix,  Etudes  d'histoire  et  de  psychologie  du  fnysticisme^ 
Paris,  1908;  Davenport,  Primitive  Traits  in  Religious  Revivals,  New  York, 
1905;  Cutten,  Psychological  Phenomena  of  Christianity,  New  York,  1908. 
This  list  might  be  much  extended,  but  it  is  not  the  purpose  to  offer  a  com- 
plete bibliography.  We  wish  merely  to  illustrate  the  statements  made 
above.     This  is  also  the  purpose  of  the  following  footnotes. 

^  "The  case  of  John  Bunyan,"  Studies  in  Good  and  Evil,  pp.  29-75, 
New  York,  1889. 

*  E.  D.  Starbuck,  The  Psychology  of  Religion,  New  York,  1899,  is 
representative  of  these  studies,  of  which  there  have  been  many,  although 
less  elaborate  than  this. 


INTRODUCTION  3 

as  the  cause  of  conversion.^  Moreover,  the  religious  attitude, 
as  such,  has  been  examined  in  itself,  apart  from  the  conven- 
tionalities of  recognized  creeds,  the  aim  being  to  determine  its 
essential  content  and  then  to  trace  its  manifestations  in  all  the 
variations  that  come  with  age,  sex,  time,  and  race.^  Mani- 
festly, such  attempts  to  isolate  the  characteristic  elements  of 
the  religious  attitude  mark  important  advance  steps  in  the 
psychology  of  religion.  In  no  case,  however,  to  our  knowl- 
edge, has  the  question  of  the  nature  of  the  material  itself  been 
raised  with  sufficient  definiteness.  In  the  first  investigations 
the  beginnings  of  a  method  are  suggested,  but  the  question 
is  not  raised  as  to  how  far  that  method  may  be  generalized, 
or  as  to  how  far  its  implications  can  be  carried  out  to  their 
logical  conclusion.  In  fact,  some  students  suggest  that  the 
psychology  of  religion,  while  it  possesses  a  certain  value,  has 
important  limitations,  that  beyond  a  certain  point  religious 
phenomena  cannot  be  psychologized.^  The  net  outcome  of 
much  that  has  been  written  is  that  certain  extreme  aspects  of 
religious  experience  seem  to  fall  definitely  within  the  domain 
of  abnormal  psychology;  that  there  is  apparently  a  correla- 
tion of  many  religious  phenomena  with  other  psychical  and 
physical  facts;  that  the  same  laws  are  valid,  in  many  cases, 
both  for  religious  and  non-religious  phenomena;  and  lastly, 
that  there  are  distinct  manifestations  marked  off  very  defi- 
nitely in  many  people,  manifestations  which  deserve  scientific 
investigation  as  aspects  of  human  consciousness. 

^  G.  A.  Coe,  The  Spiritual  Life,  New  York,  1900;    also  Davenport, 
op.  cit.,  and  Stoll,  Suggestion  und  Hypnotismus  in  der  Volkerpsychologie.    f 

^  Cf.  articles  by  Leuba,  "Introduction  to  a  psychological  study  of 
religion,"  and  "The  contents  of  religious  consciousness,"  The  Monisty/ 
Vol.  XI,  pp.  195-255,   535-573;    and  "Religion:    its  impulses  and  its 
ends,"  BiUiotheca  Sacra,  Vol.  LVII,  pp.  757-769. 

'  Coe  and  Leuba  have,  however,  protested  vigorously  against    such 
limitation  of  the  field  of  the  psychology  of  religion. 


4  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

On  the  basis  of  the  above  results,  we  now  turn  to  the  further 
question  as  to  whether  all  the  phenomena  of  religion,  the 
normal  as  well  as  the  abnormal,  on  the  side  of  actual  content,^ 
fall  legitimately  within  the  domain  of  the  psychological 
sciences,  or  whether  there  is  a  certain  portion,  general  or 
restricted,  that,  while  correlated  to  some  extent  with  the  facts 
of  ordinary  experience,  and  even  subject  to  the  same  laws, 
yet  remains  qualitatively  distinct  from  them  and  within  a 
sphere  of  its  own.  We  say,  then,  that  the  nature  of  the 
material,  or  content,  of  the  religious  consciousness  should  be 
carefully  examined.  If  the  facts  with  which  we  are  to  deal 
are  different  from  the  other  facts  of  consciousness,  will  it  be 
possible  to  state  exactly  the  nature  of  the  difference?  For 
instance,  are  religious  states  produced  by  supernatural  in- 
fluences, whereas  apparently  similar  states  outside  the  pale 
of  religion  are  built  up  and  organized  according  to  mechanical 
laws  of  association  ?  Or  shall  we  say  that,  though  the  actual 
psychical  elements  are  different,  they  appear  to  be  controlled 
by  the  same  laws  that  govern  other  mental  states?  If  it 
should  be  found  that  there  is  no  difference  in  content  or  in 
origin,  the  question  still  presents  itself  as  to  whether  there  may 
be  a  difference  in  the  functions  of  religious  and  non-religious 
states  of  consciousness.  Are  they  distinguishable  on  the 
ground  that  they  have  a  peculiar  function  in  the  life  of  the 
individual  or  of  the  race  ?  If  so,  how  have  the  ends  or  ideals 
which  seem  to  be  subserved  by  these  states  of  consciousness 
been  developed,  and  what,  if  any,  has  been  the  influence  of 
these  ends  upon  the  psychic  elements  involved  in  realizing 
them? 

Let  us  see  what  can  be  said  of  the  view  that  the  psychical 
elements  are  different  from  other  conscious  states,  that  the 

*  J.  B.  Pratt,  The  Psychology  of  Religious  Belief,  New  York,  1907, 
discusses  *  belief,'  in  part,  from  this  point  of  view. 


INTRODUCTION  5 

contents  of  the  religious  consciousness  are  in  some  sense 
peculiar  or  unique?  On  first  thought  it  may  seem  that 
they  are  unique.  Mental  states  they  certainly  are,  but 
can  they  be  said  to  be  of  the  same  genus  as  other  mental 
states  ?  This  question  has  seldom  been  raised  by  the  religious 
person  himself,  because  the  significance,  or  meaning,  of  his 
experiences  has  appealed  to  him  as  of  such  transcendent  im- 
portance that  the  content  of  those  experiences,  if  it  had 
anything  originally  in  common  with  the  rest  of  his  psychic 
life,  has  at  least  been  so  modified  by  its  reference  to  'higher 
things'  as  to  have  become  qualitatively  different  from  his 
other  experiences.  This  supposition  of  difference  of  content 
has  been  further  strengthened  by  the  implicit  assumption 
that  in  their  manner  of  coming  to  consciousness,  in  their 
manner  of  growth,  and  in  their  modes  of  expression,  religious 
experiences  are  not  subject  to  the  laws  according  to  which 
the  rest  of  the  mental  life  manifests  itself.  In  othei 
it  is  often  assumed  that  experiences  of  the  religious  type  con- 
tain some  sort  of  superhuman  or  mystical  elements  whkh, 
of  necessity,  fall  outside  the  pale  of  human  investigation. 
Hence,  even  though  the  mental  states  themselves  are  not  dif- 
ferent from  other  mental  states,  they  become  so  by  being 
intertwined  with  forces  coming  from  outside  the  individual's 
experience.  We  shall  presently  consider  the  logical  conse- 
quences for  the  psychology  of  religion  of  this  assumption. 
Let  us  here  examine  for  a  moment  the  experiences  them- 
selves. Are  they,  on  their  face,  different  in  kind  from  other 
mental  states?  They  do  not  appear  to  be  so.  The  experi- 
ences thought  to  be  religious  have  varied  greatly  with  time 
and  place.  There  seems  to  be  a  constant  flux  of  ordinary 
mental  states  into  and  out  of  the  sphere  of  religious  meanings. 
It  is  true  that  religious  feelings,  for  instance,  have  in  many 
cases  names  of  their  own,  but  this  cannot  be  taken  to  mean 


6  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

that  they  are  intrinsically  dififerent  from  other  feelings.  Thus 
there  is  the  *  sense  of  sin/  of  forgiveness,  of  *  imperfection' ;  so 
also  we  have  religious  fear,  love  for  the  deity,  states  of  peace,  of 
joy,  resignation.  \In  fact,  it  would  be  hard  to  find  a  single 
determinable  feeling  or  emotion  in  the  entire  gamut  of  human 
experience  that  has  not  had  at  some  time  and  for  some  per- 
^sons  a  religious  meaning^,  The  same  may  be  said  of  religious 
ideas,  judgments,  choices,  and  acts  of  will.  In  fine,  as  every 
student  of  comparative  religion  must  feel,  there  is  not  a  single 
aspect  of  the  conscious  life  which  conceivably,  if  not  actually, 
may  not  have  formed  a  part  of  some  religious  attitude. 

Nor  is  it  easier  to  discover  objects  in  the  external  world 
which  have  not  in  some  shape  or  form  had  value  for  some 
religious  mind.  There  seem,  in  fact,  to  be  no  aspects  of  the 
religious  consciousness,  as  far  as  its  content  goes,  that  clearly 
dififerentiate  it  from  other  phases  of  experience ;  hence  we  are 
driven  to  the  conclusion  that,  with  the  possible  exception  of 
supernatural  causation,  the  religious  attitude  can  be  differen- 
tiated only  with  reference  to  its  end,  function,  or  meaning. 
If  there  are  superhuman  factors  involved,  they  must  appear 
merely  as  causes  of  experiences  which,  when  they  have  come 
to  light,  bear  all  the  marks  of  ordinary  conscious  states  and 
appear  to  be  governed  by  the  same  laws. 

Still,  leaving  out  of  account  the  possibility  of  a  difference  in 
content  due  to  supernatural  influences  acting  in  the  manner 
suggested  above,  it  would  seem,  from  the  foregoing  discussion, 
that  there  is  no  ground  on  which  to  establish  a  distinctive 
subject-matter  for  the  psychology  of  religion  imless  it  can  be 
done  on  the  side  of  end  or  function.  If  there  can  be  shown 
to  be  an  end  or  process  that  may  be  called  religious,  in  contra- 
distinction to  other  ends  or  processes,  there  must,  then,  be  a 
distinctive  material,  of  which  it  will  be  legitimate  to  inquire 
whether  it  may  or  may  not  be  subjected  to  psychological  treat- 


INTRODUCTION  7 

ment.  When  we  attempt,  however,  to  determine  this  possible 
end,  there  appears,  at  first  glance,  to  be  as  little  chance  of  satis- 
factory definition  as  in  the  case  of  the  religious  content.  There 
is  as  great  a  variety  of  religious  ends  as  there  is  of  religious 
contents.  We  may,  however,  offer  a  purely  tentative  sug- 
gestion as  to  a  possible  end  and  see  how  it  will  work  out.  In 
general,  it  seems  to  be  true  that  a  person  in  a  religious  frame 
of  mind  regards  his  experiences  as  referring  to  something  most 
fundamental,  either  to  his  own  welfare  or  to  that  of  others 
whom  he  feels  are  intimately  bound  up  with  himself.  The 
religious  attitude  may  be  said  to  be  a  peculiar  organization 
of  mental  processes  about  the  final  meanings  of  life  as  they 
are  conceived  by  the  individual  or  the  social  group. ^  This 
ultimate  meaning  may  be  interpreted  in  large  measure  by  a 
deity  or  deities,  or  by  spirits,  good  or  bad,  conceived  as 
having  some  vital  relation  to  human  activity  or  human  needs. 
It  may  even  find  expression  in  no  imseen  force  of  any  kind, 
but  simply  in  an  ideal,  a  state  or  condition,  in  something, 
however,  that  is  felt  to  have  fundamental  importance  and  with 
reference  to  which  present  activity  and  modes  of  thought  are 
modified  and  directed.  The  purpose  of  the  psychology  of 
religion,  then,  would  seem  to  be  the  investigation  of  such 
problems  as  these:  How  and  why  has  the  consciousness  of 
these  ultimate  values  arisen?  By  what  means  does  this 
consciousness  find  expression?  Granted  a  more  or  less  con- 
tinuous appreciation  of  these  ultimate  values,  why  have  the 
reactions  to  them  varied  with  time,  place,  and  individual? 
What  is  the  significance  of  the  apparent  absence  of  this  atti- 
tude in  many  individuals,  especially  in  modem  times? 

It  shall  be  our  object,  then,  to  examine  a  certain  body  of 
material,  or  content,  if  we  please  to  call  it  such,  with  ref- 

^  Cf .  Menzies,  Allan,  History  of  Religion^  p.  24,  for  a  somewhat  similar 
conception. 


8  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

erence  to  its  end,  or  significance,  in  a  larger  process.  If  this 
content  of  conscious  states  and  activities  is  the  same  as  that 
content  which  is  operative  in  other  phases  of  experience,  and 
yet  different  in  the  functions  which  it  subserves,  we  have  a 
fairly  definite  starting-point  from  which  to  trace  its  natural 
history.  If  the  material  with  which  we  are  to  deal  were  differ- 
ent more  or  less  from  the  ordinary  contents  of  consciousness, 
we  should  lack  an  important  leverage  that  identity  of  content 
would  give  us.  Knowledge  of  a  given  content,  as  it  exists  in 
some  other  context,  subserving  other  ends,  may  contribute 
largely  to  the  understanding  of  that  content  in  another  sphere. 
So  much,  then,  as  to  the  nature  of  the  problem,  if  the  relational 
method  of  treatment  is  adopted.  To  the  present  writer, 
it  seems  impossible  to  mark  off  any  distinctive  field  for  the 
psychology  of  religion  on  the  basis  of  the  particular  experiences 
taken  in  themselves.  Only  when  we  come  to  consider  them 
in  relation  to  some  assumed  end  can  we  admit  that  we  have 
a  distinctive  and  legitimate  problem.  Of  course  we  have 
not  as  yet  fully  considered  the  possibility  of  an  actual  differ- 
ence of  content  due  to  the  operation  of  preternatural  forces. 
These,  as  was  stated  above,  if  they  are  to  be  taken  into  ac- 
count at  all,  must  be  regarded  as  causes  of  mental  states  which, 
as  far  as  observation  can  extend,  appear  not  unlike  the  con- 
tent of  the  rest  of  experience.  It  might  also  be  held  that 
these  external  forces  determined  in  some  subtle  way  the 
form  and  organization  of  the  religious  experience. 

The  only  possible  way  to  deal  with  this  problem  is  from  the 
logical  side,  and  from  this  point  of  view  we  may  ask :  Are  the 
various  reactions  which  fall  within  the  religious  category  to 
be  regarded  as  complete,  or  are  they  on  the  human  side 
incomplete,  requiring  that  various  superhuman  elements  be 
joined  in  some  way  with  the  disjecta  membra  of  the  human 
experience  that  the  statement  on  the  existential  side  may  be 


INTRODUCTION  9 

complete?  If  the  latter  alternative  is  the  true  one,  we  may 
say  at  once  that  we  do  not  believe  there  can  be  a  psychology 
of  religion  in  any  proper  sense  of  the  word.  If  the  content 
of  the  religious  consciousness  is  subject  to  a  different  organiza- 
tion from  that  of  other  known  psychic  states,  and  if,  above  all, 
it  is  not  susceptible  of  a  complete  statement  within  itself, 
but  requires  the  interpolation  of  some  ' spiritual*  elements 
to  fill  it  out,  it  would  clearly  be  vain  to  seek  for  any  more  than 
disconnected  statements  of  variously  isolated  or  partially 
related  elements,  elements  which  could  be  completely  stated 
only  through  the  speculations  of  theologian  and  philosopher. 
From  a  scientific  point  of  view,  nothing  definite  could  ever 
be  established  about  these  reactions,  since  it  would  be  as 
impossible  for  psychology  to  determine  its  own  limitations  in 
dealing  with  them  as  it  would  be  for  it  to  try  to  subject  the 
so-called  *  spiritual'  elements  of  the  experience  in  question 
to  a  scientific  examination.  The  difficulty  confronting  psy- 
chology, under  these  circumstances,  would  be  identical  with 
that  which  one  experiences  in  trying  to  conceive  an  end 
to  space.  It  makes  no  difference  whether  space  is  finite  or 
infinite ;  the  non-spacial  can  never  be  represented  as  bound- 
ing the  spacial.  The  two  cannot  be  related  in  terms  of  con- 
tiguity, for  that  would  amount  to  describing  the  non-spacial 
in  terms  of  the  spacial.  To  put  the  problem  in  Kantian  terms, 
it  is  that  of  the  relation  of  phenomena  to  noumena.  There 
may  be  noumena  or  there  may  not  be  noumena;  the  whole 
question  of  their  existence  is  absolutely  indifferent  to  the 
rational  description  of  phenomena.  If  a  noumenon  were  to 
stand  between  two  phenomena  and  condition  the  passage  from 
one  to  the  other,  it  would  mean  either  that  the  noumenon  was 
a  phenomenon  or  nothing  at  all,  as  far  as  knowledge  goes. 
y  No  science  can  be  built  upon  the  assumption  of  an  inter- 
/action  between  two  unlike  worlds,  one  of  which  is  knowable, 


lo  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

and  the  other  either  unknowable  or  subject  to  different 
laws  and  categories  from  the  first.  There  may  be,  and  in 
fact  are,  many  unexplained  gaps  in  the  known  world,  but  the 
scientist  does  not  dare  to  call  in  a  noumenon  to  bridge  the  gap. 
He  must  work  upon  the  assumption  either  that  there  are  no 
gaps,  or  that,  with  increase  of  knowledge,  they  will  eventu- 
ally be  filled  in  and  explained  in  phenomenal  terms.  Many 
philosophers  have  laid  great  stress  upon  the  fragmentary 
character  of  science,  pointing  out,  to  use  the  figure  of  Ward's,* 
that  instead  of  its  being  a  great  sphere  that  is  gradually 
enlarging  its  diameter  by  its  encroachments  upon  the  unknown 
beyond,  it  is  really  only  a  patchwork  with  vast  rifts  of  the 
unknown  penetrating  to  its  very  core,  the  various  parts  of  the 
patchwork  not  even  fitting  together.  Points  of  view  such  as 
this  are  susceptible  of  two  interpretations :  either  these  lacunce 
in  our  knowledge  will  gradually  disappear  before  the  explorer, 
or  they  offer  an  eternal  barrier  to  the  progress  of  finite  knowl- 
edge. Every  scientist  would  be  obliged  to  take  the  first  of 
these  alternatives,  at  least  as  a  working  hypothesis.  If  there 
are  unbridgable  chasms  in  the  sphere  of  the  '  known,'  he  cannot 
know  of  them.  The  assertion  that  they  exist  is  merely  a  play 
upon  words.  If  they  exist,  he  cannot  locate  them,  nor  can  he 
think  of  them  or  image  them  in  any  way,  and  so  for  him  they 
are  non-existent.  The  scientist  is  perfectly  safe  in  assuming 
that  his  realms  may  finally  be  extended  so  as  to  include  every- 
thing, for  there  could  be  no  science  on  any  other  assumption. 
The  mere  possibility  of  elements  not  subject  to  the  cate- 
gories of  science  scattered  through  the  world  of  phenomena 
would  vitiate  the  entire  work  of  the  scientist.  If  there  are 
preterrational  elements,  there  is  at  least  no  danger  that  they 
may  ever  intrude  to  spoil  the  structure  of  reason.  Every 
known  element  must  be  susceptible  of  some  sort  of  an  explana- 
"\*  James  Ward,  Naturalism  and  Agnosticism,  Vol.  I,  pp.  26,  27., 


INTRODUCTION  1 1 

tion  in  terms  of  the  rest  of  the  world.  ^  This  is  the  condition 
of  its  being  known.  It  may  seem  that  there  has  been  an  un- 
due insistence  upon  this  point,  but  the  ordinary  looseness  of 
thought  regarding  the  nature  and  possibility  of  the  science  of 
religion  is  proof  that  it  has  not  been  sufficiently  recognized. 
It  is,  in  fact,  a  general  tendency  of  all  naive  thinkers  to  insist 
on  the  presence  of  non-rationalizable  elements  in  whatever 
is  esteemed  of  great  worth,  as  if  the  presence  of  such  would 
make  these  values  more  worthy  of  respect.  Thus,  it  is  com- 
mon to  postulate  some  inner  entity  or  soul,  and  to  insist  that 
the  psychological  concept  of  stimulus  and  response  is  not  a 
sufficient  basis  upon  which  to  explain  conscious  phenomena. 
It  may  be  true  that  this  particular  conception  is  not  adequate, 
but  the  point  of  those  who  usually  object  to  it  is  that  neither 
this  nor  any  other  concept  will  answer  the  purpose,  that  there 
will  always  be  a  non-explainable  something ;  that  if  there  were 
not,  the  integrity  of  personality  would  be  menaced. 

The  facts  of  religious  experience,  no  matter  how  dififerent 
from  those  of  ordinary  life,  the  elements  of  a  religious  con- 
sciousness, no  matter  how  unique,  from  the  very  fact  of  their 
existence  as  data  of  knowledge,  are  susceptible,  or  ought  to  be 
susceptible,  of  a  scientific  treatment.  And  such  a  treatment  can 
with  perfect  consistence  ignore  all  supersensible  elements  and 
insist  that  its  statement  is  or  can  be  made  absolutely  as  com- 
plete as  that  made  by  the  physicist  or  by  the  psychologist  who 
deals  with  ordinary  experience.  A  scientific  statement  has  no 
meaning  except  within  a  closed  system  of  definite  relations. 
This  system  is  not  necessarily  all  of  reality,  but  each  new  fact 
discovered  is  recognized  solely  because  of  its  ability  to  enter 
the  existing  system  either  as  a  new  member  of  that  system  or  as 

*In  this  general  connection,  cf.  the  excellent  discussion  of  G.  B.  Foster's 
in  his  Finality  of  the  Christian  Religion,  Cha,p.  Yl,  "The  naturalistic  and 
religious  world-views." 


12  DEVELOPMENT  OF  RELIGION 

a  reorganizer  of  it.  There  may  easily  be  realities  that  will 
always  fall  outside  any  rational  system  that  we  can  construct, 
but  as  such  they  can  never  be  known,  and  hence  can  never 
destroy  the  equilibrium  of  the  system  of  the  known.  It  is  not 
maintained  that  every  fact  must  appeal  to  every  one  as  rational, 
but  rather  that  every  step  is  taken  on  the  assumption  that  it  is, 
or  will  be  found  to  be,  rational,  if  time  enough  is  given  for 
searching  it  out  and  utilizing  it.  Neither  the  supersensible 
nor  the  irrational  can  enter  into  relationship  with  the  sensible 
and  the  rational  in  a  way  that  can  be  conceived  or  described. 

In  the  science  of  religion,  therefore,  we  do  not  need  to  dis- 
cuss the  question  as  to  whether  there  may  be  a  connection 
between  the  natural  and  the  supernatural.  There  may  be 
a  connection,  but  the  categories  of  experience  are  not  capable 
of  describing  it.  The  scientific  examination  of  religion  canK^ 
not,  of  course,  deny  the  reality  of  supernatural  elements  in  the 
various  contents  and  processes  of  the  religious  consciousness. 
It  simply  holds  that  the  relation  of  one  to  the  other  is  such  as 
cannot  be  described  in  phenomenal  terms.  It  is,  moreover, 
entirely  admissible  for  the  practical  religionist  to  symbolize 
his  feeling  of  the  ultimate  worthfulness  of  his  religious 
experiences  by  holding  that  they  are  of  divine  origin.  His 
assumption  is,  however,  a  purely  practical  expedient.  The 
statements  he  makes  are  not  existential  but  practical. 
They  are  ways  of  stating  to  one's  self  the  meaning  of  par- 
ticular experiences  for  one's  life,  or  they  may  be  said  to  be 
indices  of  a  certain  attitude  in  the  person  rather  than  descrip- 
tions of  external  existence.  Thus,  the  highest  religious  con- 
cept, that  of  the  deity,  is  an  expression  of  personal  attitude 
rather  than  a  statement  of  an  existence  of  some  sort  which 
may  reveal  itself  by  various  interpolations  within  the  natural 
order  of  phenomena. 

The  relationship  of  God  to  the  world  was  once  conceived 


INTRODUCTION  13 

in  spacial  and  causal  terms.  But  every  advance  of  science 
has  made  such  connections  more  remote.  The  endeavor  to 
maintain  the  status  of  the  divine  through  miracles  and  special 
providences,  or  to  make  it  the  first  cause,  are  special  aspects 
of  this  conception.  Some  persons  have  thought,  since  the 
farthest  reaches  of  telescopic  vision  do  not  reveal  God  in  space, 
and  since  science  and  the  doctrine  of  chances  explain  away 
the  miracles  and  special  providences,  that  his  existence  is 
thereby  disproved,  whereas  the  only  thing  that  is  done  by  these 
advances  of  science  is  to  illustrate  the  futility  of  attempting  to 
describe  God  as  a  phenomenon,  and  hence  his  relation  to  the 
world  and  to  conscious  minds  in  phenomenal  categories.^ 

The  point  of  interest  in  this  passage  is  the  recognition  of  the 
fact  that  the  relation  of  the  world  of  rational  and  rationalizable 
things  and  experiences  to  any  supernatural  world  is  not  to  be 
stated  in  terms  of  ordinary  knowledge.  It  also  presents  an 
attempt  at  a  schematic  statement  of  the  nature  of  the  relation. 
The  latter  may  or  may  not  be  a  proper  question  for  philoso- 
phy ;  it  is  manifestly  not  one  that  concerns  the  psychologist. 

Before  passing  from  the  question  discussed  above,  we  should 
not  fail  to  note  an  attempt  to  deal  with  it  in  terms  of  existen- 
tial and  valuational  judgments.^    It  is  held  that  the  content 

^  The  following  quotation  (condensed)  from  Howison's  Limits  of  Evolu- 
tion, pp.  72-74,  emphasizes  the  point  we  have  made  above :  — 

"God  is  not  separate  from  the  world,  but  efifectually  present  in  it,  and 
the  distinction  between  the  soul  and  the  God  who  recognizes  and  redeems 
it  can  never  be  truly  stated  as  a  distinction  in  place  and  time,  a  separation 
in  space  and  by  a  period,  a  contrast  between  efficient  cause  and  produced 
effect.  On  the  contrary,  the  distinction  must  be  viewed  as  a  contrast  (and 
yet  a  relation)  between  centres  of  consciousness,  each  thoroughly  self -active ; 
and  further,  as  a  distinction  in  the  mode  by  which  each  conscious  centre  de- 
fines its  individual  being  in  terms  of  its  ideal.  In  short  it  must  be  thought 
in  terms  of  final  cause  alone.  No  mind  can  have  an  efficient  relation  to  an- 
other mind.  Efficiency  is  the  attribute  of  every  mind  toward  its  own  acts 
and  life  or  toward  the  world  of  mere  things  which  forms  the  theatre  of  its 
action." 

'  Cf .  W.  James,  Varieties  of  Religious  Experience,  Lecture  I. 


14  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

of  a  religious  experience  is  to  be  rigidly  distinguished  from 
its  value,  and  that  each  should  receive  separate  treatment. 
The  content  is  regarded  as  the  appropriate  subject-matter  for 
science,  while  the  meaning,  or  value,  of  this  content  is  more 
or  less  ultra-rational.  Now,  while  such  a  separation  may 
be  made,  we  should  hold  that  it  is  purely  one  for  convenience 
in  describing  the  experience,  and  does  not  imply  qualitatively 
different  sets  of  facts,  one  of  which  is  rational izable  and  one 
irrational  or  superrational.  The  basis  of  the  view  just  criti- 
cised seems  to  be  an  acceptance  at  their  face  value  of  the 
estimates  set  upon  these  experiences  by  the  religious  person 
himself.  That  the  religious  mind  deals  with  supposedly  pre- 
ternatural values  is  not  to  be  taken  by  the  scientist  as  an 
indication  that  this  worthfulness  is  incapable  of  rationalistic 
treatment.  He  has  as  much  right  to  inquire  into  what  facts 
of  experience  religious  valuations  deal  with  as  he  has  to  de- 
scribe the  content  of  the  experience.  In  a  final  philosophy 
of  the  universe  it  may  be  found  to  be  true  that  the  valuational 
reference  of  the  religious  experience  will  be  a  valid  statement 
of  an  order  of  existence  beyond  human  experience.  But 
the  scientist  cannot  presuppose  any  such  considerations  and 
remain  a  scientist.  He  must  find  in  these  valuations  attempts 
to  deal  with  some  phase  of  the  actual  content  of  experience. 
In  general,  he  will  see  in  the  supernatural  reference  attributed 
by  the  religious  mind  to  its  experiences  a  symbolic  method 
of  stating  those  values  which  seem  to  it  to  be  greatest  and 
most  abiding.  In  other  words,  if  it  be  granted  that  the 
supernatural  reference  of  the  religious  judgment  is  to  be 
interpreted  as  a  method  of  symbolizing  certain  aspects  of 
experience,  it  would  seem  that  religious  valuations  should 
possess  just  such  a  natural  history  as  do  ordinary  types  of 
value.  Thus,  while  we  should  admit  that  it  may  be  de- 
sirable to  distinguish  between  existence  and  meaning,  this 


INTRODUCTION  15 

does  not  of  itself  lend  any  weight  to  the  assumption  that  the 
meaning  of  an  experience  transcends  scientific  analysis  or 
description. 

If  the  peculiar  differentia  of  the  religious  consciousness 
lies  on  the  side  of  the  functions  served  rather  than  on  that 
of  intrinsic  psychic  content,  it  would  seem  to  be  impossible 
to  leave  meaning  and  value  out  of  account  in  treating  of 
religion,  for  no  function  can  be  intelligibly  discussed  out  of 
connection  with  the  end  to  which  it  is  adjusted.  As  was 
stated  in  the  preceding  paragraph,  it  does  not  follow  that  the 
end  or  value  to  be  considered  can  be  taken  in  just  the  sense 
in  which  the  religionist  states  it  for  himself.  There  is  no 
doubt  of  our  right  to  abstract  from  his  estimates  of  the  mean- 
ing of  his  experiences.  All  his  predications  of  value  are  them- 
selves facts  to  be  explained  along  with  his  other  experiences. 
The  values  and  ends  for  the  psychologist  are  probably 
quite  different  from  those  conceived  by  the  possessor  of  the 
experience.  The  two  different  senses  of  value  or  end,  and 
hence  of  function,  may  be  illustrated  in  the  field  of  aesthetics. 
The  functional  relations  of  certain  aesthetic  stimuli  may,  on 
the  one  hand,  be  said  to  be  the  succeeding  states  of  conscious- 
ness caused  by  these  stimuli,  or  perhaps,  more  generally,  the 
psychological  process,  or  context,  in  which  they  occur.  To 
the  recipient  of  these  stimuli,  however,  their  function  is  not 
the  psychological  setting,  but  something  more  objective. 
The  naive  mind  is  not  concerned  with  conscious  states,  but 
with  an  objective  world.  In  so  far  as  the  conscious  states 
come  to  attention,  they  are  interpreted  with  reference  to  the 
conceived  objective  order.  The  aesthetic  stimuli  may  per- 
haps be  conceived  as  agencies  for  bringing  him  into  contact 
with  existences  or  experiences  that  lie  more  or  less  remote 
from  his  immediate  self.  As  such  they  bear  a  direct  relation  to 
these  remote  values,  to  this  objective  order  that  they  mediate. 


l6  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

From  these  two  points  of  view  the  function  of  the  impressions 
produced  by  a  great  painting  may  be  stated  in  terms  of  the 
actually  resulting  psychic  experiences  of  pleasure  or  pain  in 
all  their  subtle  ramifications  and  combinations,  or  it  may  be 
stated  more  objectively,  as  the  means  of  heightening  the 
recipient's  sense  of  duty  in  some  specific  way,  or  of  making 
him  feel  more  keenly  some  truth  or  some  aspiration,  or  of 
bringing  him  into  more  intimate  contact  with  some  objective 
reality,  so  called. 

The  case  of  religion  is  precisely  analogous  to  the  above. 
Here  there  are  certain  states  of  consciousness  that  are  regarded 
as  valuable  by  the  individual;  they  mean  to  him  a  height- 
ening of  his  sense  of  '  divine  presence,'  a  strengthening  of  his 
natural  powers  by  '  supernatural '  agencies.  These  states  of 
mind  bring  him  consolation,  peace,  fear,  self-condemnation, 
and  the  like.  The  functional  statement  from  this  point  of 
view  may  be  almost  anything  that  individual  caprice  can 
imagine.  But  for  psychology,  this  hypothetical  objective 
context  itself  needs  explanation,  and  it  is  the  task  of  psychol- 
ogy to  seek  a  more  general  setting  of  other  mental  states  and 
processes.  Questions  such  as  the  following,  psychology  must 
ask  concerning  the  objective  world  which  has  been  con- 
structed by  the  religious  person :  How  has  he  acquired  the 
consciousness  of  this  or  that  end  or  value  ?  How  does  it  come 
that  he  has  sought  to  gain  these  conditions  of  rapport  with 
superior  powers  ?  How  have  certain  conscious  states  acquired 
a  significance  for  this  purpose  under  certain  conditions,  while, 
under  other  conditions,  the  same  mental  elements  occur 
without  these  evaluations?  How  also  do  the  selected  con- 
scious states  fulfil  their  peculiar  function  of  producing  in  the 
individual  these  value  judgments?  It  is  with  questions  of 
this  type  that  we  are  concerned  in  these  studies. 

The  question  of  the  validity  of  the  individual's  experience, 


INTRODUCTION  17 

that  is,  whether  it  is  worth  what  he  claims  for  it  or  not,  may 
or  may  not  be  touched  by  the  psychological  statement.  The  in- 
quiry that  is  here  proposed  should,  however,  give  us  a  certain 
amount  of  presupposition  for  or  against  such  validity.  The 
examination  of  the  origin  and  development  of  a  content  cannot, 
in  other  words,  be  absolutely  cut  ofiE  from  its  present  efficiency 
or  lack  of  efficiency.  ''An  inquiry  into  the  origin  of  a  fact  is 
by  no  means  an  attempt  to  prejudice  its  present  value.  It 
is  rather  undertaken  that  we  may  understand  the  present 
value  more  adequately.  ...  No  effects  can  be  evaluated  out 
of  relation  to  the  conditions  with  reference  to  which  they  have 
occurred. "  ^  The  value- judgment  is  not  applied  to  a  content 
as  a  thing  that  exists  in  and  of  itself,  but  with  reference  to 
some  end.  The  way  in  which  the  end  is  met  certainly 
throws  light  upon  the  means.  The  nature  of  the  make-up  of 
a  carpenter's  tool,  its  origin  and  content,  will  be  definitely 
related  to  its  value  for  the  carpenter's  work.  Any  discussion 
of  the  merit  or  demerit  of  the  particular  tool  will  have  no 
direct  bearing  upon  the  validity  of  the  trade  in  which  it  is  used. 
If,  however,  it  should  be  found  that  the  tools  as  a  whole  used 
by  the  carpenter  were  decidedly  inferior  in  material  and  work- 
manship to  the  tools  of  other  trades,  there  would  be  a  sus- 
picion aroused  that  either  the  carpenter's  trade  was  itself  an 
inferior  one,  or  else  that  it  failed  to  come  up  to  its  own  possi- 
bilities. Likewise,  in  the  psychology  of  religion,  not  only  are 
contents  to  be  distinguished  functionally,  but  the  functions 
themselves  are  to  be  in  a  measure  criticised  through  the 
contents.  This  is  possible  because  the  contents  come  to 
us  from  other  contexts  with  a  certain  natural  history.  We 
can  thus  say  of  them  that,  as  far  as  structure  goes,  they  are 
good  or  bad,  a  fact  that  must  be  taken  into  account  when 

^  I.  King,  "  Pragmatism  as  philosophic  method,"  Philosophical  Review^ 
September,  1906. 


i8  DEVELOPMENT  OF  RELIGION 

they  are  examined  with  reference  to  their  functions  in  the 
new  sphere. 

It  seems  strange  that  so  many  have  considered  it  necessary 
to  limit  the  scientific  study  of  religion  to  its  bare  content  or 
to  its  ^  existential '  aspects,  excluding  the  sphere  of  meaning  as 
something  too  sacred  or  subtle  to  be  thus  desecrated.  But  it 
is  certainly  as  legitimate  to  seek  within  the  circle  of  the  life- 
process  the  origin  of  all  values,  together  with  their  inter- 
relationships, as  it  is  to  seek  to  interpret  the  so-called  contents 
of  experience  in  these  terms.  The  psychologist  can  admit 
nothing  into  his  statement  that  comes  from  without  this  pro- 
cess, and  all  within  it  he  considers  as  the  legitimate  object 
of  his  research.  He  does  not  need,  however,  to  ignore  the 
fact  that  to  some  of  his  material  there  is  attributed  an  external 
reference  of  some  sort.  His  position  should  simply  be  that 
the  fact  of  an  outside  reference  requires  to  be  stated  in  terms 
of  the  life-process  itself.  The  matter  of  an  outside  reference 
is  itself  a  fact  of  no  little  interest  and,  in  so  far  as  it  is  an  as- 
pect of  the  religious  consciousness,  it  becomes  a  problem  for 
the  psychologist. 

On  logical  grounds,  at  any  rate,  then,  it  seems  necessary  to 
assume  that  every  phase  of  the  religious  experience  is  legiti- 
mate material  for  the  psychologist.  There  is  no  danger  of 
preternatural  elements  ever  appearing  and  rendering  the 
psychologist's  descriptions  inadequate.  Every  element  of  ex- 
perience, conscious  or  subconscious,  is  definitely  related  to 
other  elements  of  experience  or  to  the  biological  processes 
of  the  physical  organism.  The  system  is  complete.  If  pre- 
ternatural causation  were  possible  through  the  subconscious 
regions  of  the  mind,  there  could  be  no  psychology  of  religion. 
All  of  the  accounts  of  it  which  we  might  be  able  to  give  would 
be  hopelessly  confused,  for  we  would  never  know  when  we  had 
a   strictly  natural  fact  and  when  a  supernatural  one,  and 


INTRODUCTION  19 

further,  there  would  be  no  criterion  for  determining  which 
was  which.  This  alone  is  the  basis  on  which  a  psychology 
of  religion  can  be  constructed,  and  it  is  a  basis  in  perfect 
accord  with  the  presuppositions  of  every  science.  The  only 
question  is  as  to  whether  we  must  necessarily  make  these 
presuppositions.  The  very  fact  of  the  existence  and  triumph 
of  science  in  the  modern  world  is  itself  an  answer  absolutely 
in  the  affirmative. 

If  it  is  true  that  a  psychological  statement  of  the  religious 
consciousness  is  possible,  it  would  seem  that  such  a  statement 
should  be  a  conditio  sine  qua  non  for  all  other  theoretical 
inquiries  into  the  nature  of  religion.  It  is  such  a  prerequisite 
because  in  this  way  only  can  the  material  as  such  be  clearly 
conceived.  It  is  possible,  of  course,  to  state  the  subject- 
matter  of  any  conceptual  system  in  many  different  ways,  each 
intrinsically  of  equal  worth.  One  statement  is  better  than 
another  only  as  we  take  into  account  other  existing  systems 
of  knowledge.  If  it  be  granted  that  the  elements  of  the 
religious  consciousness  are  first  of  all  psychic  phenomena, 
it  would  seem  to  be  indispensable  to  all  further  treatment 
of  them  to  know  them  definitely  first  of  all  as  psychic 
phenomena.  This  should  be  a  vital  need,  at  least  for  theology. 
The  theologian  uses,  in  the  main,  terms  that  came  into  use 
long  before  a  science  of  religion  was  possible.  The  dogmatic 
concepts  of  the  religious  life,  in  other  words,  rest  upon  un- 
evaluated  experience,  or  rather,  they  are  the  outgrowth  of  an 
evaluation  of  experience  that  belongs  to  an  earlier  stage  of 
culture.  The  terms  are,  in  the  main,  figurative,  as  were  all 
scientific  terms  originally.  But  in  the  case  of  religious  con- 
cepts it  is  peculiarly  needful  that  there  be  a  reconstruction 
with  reference  to  the  psychological  terms  that  have  been 
built  up  independently  and  which  yet  refer  to  the  same  con- 
tent.    Thus  only  can  they  be  freed  from  their  connotation 


20  DEVELOPMENT  OF  RELIGION 

derived  wholly  from  ages  whose  methods  of  thought  were 
totally  different  from  our  own.  The  necessity  for  this  analy- 
sis and  reconstruction  has  not  been  felt  because  the  expe- 
riences in  question  have  been  supposed  to  be  ultimately  valid 
and  immediately  known  by  some  inner  sense  so  as  to  render 
the  assistance  of  reflective  thought  superfluous.  As  a  result 
of  this  general  attitude,  each  interpreter  of  the  religious  life 
naively  makes  his  terms  mean  anything  he  chooses.  He 
consequently  finds  in  them  merely  a  reflection  of  his  own 
predispositions  and  prejudices.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  it 
were  known  and  recognized  in  theology  exactly  what  psychic 
phenomena  the  'new  birth,'  'the  baptism  of  the  Holy  Ghost,' 
'  the  old  man ' '  the  sense  of  sin, '  and  the  like  terms  stand  for,  it 
would  be  possible  eventually  to  build  up  a  consistent  and  useful 
body  of  doctrine.  If  the  religious  attitude  is  one  that  it  is  de- 
sirable to  cultivate,  the  possibility  of  doing  it  would  be  greatly 
increased  by  such  a  scientific  knowledge  of  its  content  and 
relationships.  Such  a  knowledge  would  also  furnish  a  basis 
of  control  for  the  development  of  the  religious  consciousness 
in  the  race.  The  concepts  of  the  religionist  are,  of  course,  to 
him  relatively  fixed  affairs.  We  shall  try  presently  to  get  a 
psychological  statement  for  the  conservatism  of  religion;  for 
the  present  it  may  be  taken  for  granted.  From  the  stand- 
point of  his  conservatism  the  religionist  feels  that  the  values 
with  which  he  deals  are  fixed  for  all  time.  Different  concepts 
of  value  held  by  others  are  thought  to  be  due  to  wilful  blind- 
ness or  lack  of  '  light.'  The  historical  and  comparative  study 
of  religion  proves,  however,  that  this  fixity  is  only  apparent,  or 
at  the  most  pertains  merely  to  the  formal  aspects  of  expression 
and  practice.  From  the  standpoint  of  emphasis  and  reference, 
the  content  of  religion  is  constantly  shifting.  To  get  the  full 
significance  of  these  changes,  we  need  to  know  something 
of  the  functional  relations  in  the  life-process  of  such  processes 


INTRODUCTION  21 

as  feeling  and  emotion,  of  cognition  and  volition.  The 
purely  historical  study  of  religion  must  be  supplemented  by 
a  genetic  account  of  tlie  development  of  consciousness.  All 
this  should  prepare  the  way  for  definite  answers  to  various 
questions  regarding  current  religious  practice  and  belief. 
The  distinctive  value  of  this  genetic-psychological  study 
consists  in  the  light  it  throws  upon  the  origin  of  the  present 
religious  attitude  and  the  possible  future  course  of  develop- 
ment of  that  attitude. 

If  the  practical  religionist  needs  the  data  and  presuppositions 
of  his  faith  examined,  the  philosopher  of  religion  stands  in  an 
equal  need.  The  great  variety  of  definitions  of  religion  that 
philosophers  have  given  us  is  in  itself  evidence  of  the  desira- 
bility of  a  preliminary  analysis  of  the  subject-matter  in  terms 
of  general  psychology.  The  philosopher  uses  psychological 
terms  in  his  discussions,  but  usually  unanalyzed  ones.  A 
psychological  term  cannot,  however,  be  used  offhand.  It  is 
meaningless  to  say  that  religion  is  chiefly  emotion.  Emotion 
itself  needs  to  be  defined.  A  typical  definition  from  this 
point  of  view  is  that  of  Pfleiderer.^  "  In  the  religious  con- 
sciousness all  sides  of  the  whole  personality  participate.  Of 
course  we  must  recognize  that  knowing  and  willing  are  here 
not  ends  in  themselves,  as  in  science  and  morality,  .  .  .  but 
rather  subordinated  to  feeling  as  the  real  centre  of  religious 
consciousness.'^  Entirely  aside  from  the  question  as  to  the 
truth  or  falsity  of  this  definition,  it  is  evident  that  feeling, 
knowing,  and  willing  are  here  taken  as  given  elements,  by  a 
proper  mixture  of  which  the  religious  consciousness  is  pro- 
duced. The  definition  seems  to  be  constructed  entirely  aside 
from  any  inquiry  into  the  interrelations  of  these  aspects 
of  mental  process  in  experience  as  a  whole,  and  this  re- 

^  "The  notion  and  problem  of  the  philosophy  of  religion,"  Philosophical 
Review,  Vol.  II,  p.  131.     January,  1893. 


22  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

lationship  can  be  determined  only  by  a  study  of  conscious- 
ness from  the  genetic  point  of  view.  This  definition  is 
typical  of  what  the  philosopher  attempts  to  do  with  religion 
by  manipulating  psychological  concepts.  These  stand  for 
so  many  static  elements  that  he  arranges  to  suit  the  a  priori 
idea  of  the  religious  consciousness  or  of  religious  evolution. 
For  the  psychologist,  however,  religious  phenomena  are  pri- 
marily reactions  of  a  certain  kind  and,  as  such,  have  some 
sort  of  a  setting  within  the  life-process  of  the  individual 
or  at  least  of  the  race.  By  treating  them  as  reactions  of  a 
particular  type,  we  have  at  least  a  starting-point  for  some 
perfectly  definite  inquiries,  a  basis  on  which  a  really 
scientific  investigation  is  possible.  The  old  method  of  try- 
ing to  determine  the  essential  qualities  of  the  religious  con- 
sciousness, whether  emotional,  volitional,  or  intellectual, 
by  an  analysis  of  religion  in  and  of  itself  is  scarcely  more 
profitable  than  the  scholastic  explication  of  concepts.  In 
the  psychological  study  proposed  we  do  not  seek  to  draw  a 
line  around  some  definite  content  that  we  shall  choose  to  call 
religious;  our  inquiry  is  as  to  the  sort  of  mental  contents 
that  will  emerge  and  become  organized,  if  a  reaction  toward 
certain  ends  is  admitted  as  a  fact. 

The  lack  of  a  psychological  basis  is  evident  in  practically 
all  discussions  of  religious  phenomena.  In  some  way  or 
other  nearly  all  are  one-sided  on  account  of  the  failure  to 
take  account  of  the  implications  of  the  reaction  as  the 
fundamental  psychic  unit.  Thus  the  accounts  that  we  receive 
of  the  religious  practices  of  the  natural  races  usually  go 
no  farther  than  descriptions  of  the  overt  activities,  with  per- 
haps their  objective  significance  to  the  people  concerned. 
Now,  the  interpretations  by  the  people  themselves  are  not  of 
direct  psychological  value.  They  are  facts,  also,  as  we  said 
above,  that  need  explanation.    The  psychological  problem 


INTRODUCTION  23 

is  why  there  is  such  and  such  an  attitude,  and  why  it  finds 
expression  in  this  or  that  sort  of  practice;  and  further,  what 
are  its  functions  along  with  other  attitudes  and  reactions. 
These  questions  are  raised  entirely  aside  from  what  the  re- 
ligious consciousness  itself  assumes  that  it  expresses  or  refers 
to.  Similarly,  the  more  subjective  types  of  religion  are  not 
dealt  with  psychologically  by  giving  simply  the  significance  of 
the  states  to  those  who  possess  them.  The  religionist  sees  in 
various  practices  and  conscious  states  the  expression,  true 
or  false,  of  a  religious  attitude,  instinct,  or  intuition.  The 
philosopher  traces  in  the  various  practices  the  gradual  un- 
folding, or  perhaps  perversion,  of  certain  truths,  ideas,  or 
a  priori  notions.  The  psychologist,  we  may  be  permitted  to 
repeat,  should  attempt  to  treat  the  acts  and  states  of  con- 
sciousness with  reference  to  their  setting  and  function  in  the 
general  life-process. 


CHAPTER   II 

PRELIMINARY    QUESTIONS    REGARDING    THE    EVOLUTION    OF 

RELIGION 

That  there  has  been  an  evolution  of  reh'gion,  no  one  can 
doubt;  but  there  seems  to  be  much  uncertainty  regarding  the 
precise  nature  of  the  process.  It  is  the  purpose  of  this  chapter 
to  offer  a  statement  of  the  problem  as  it  presents  itself  to  the 
psychologist.  We  shall  first  attempt  to  determine  what  it 
is  that  may  be  said  to  have  undergone  an  evolution;  and, 
secondly,  the  fundamental  conditions  which  lie  back  of  and 
have  mediated  the  process. 

The  data  of  the  psychology  of  religion,  like  those  of  the 
biological  sciences,  are  highly  complex.  This  is  true  of  all 
religious  phenomena,  whether  of  civilized  or  savage,  whether 
mental  states  or  ritualistic  observances.  This  complexity  is 
susceptible  of  only  one  interpretation,  namely,  that  it  is  the 
result  of  some  sort  of  development.  With  no  individual  or 
people  of  to-day  may  we  expect  to  find  extant  the  truly  primi- 
tive religious  consciousness.  Just  as  in  the  case  of  animal  and 
vegetable  forms,  where  every  generation  tends  to  be  increas- 
ingly differentiated  in  structure  and  function,  so  with  all  forms 
of  mental  process,  each  succeeding  psychic  event  being  the 
resultant  of  all  that  have  preceded  it.  Just  as  it  is  impossible 
that  we  should  find  among  modern  unicellular  organisms 
specimens  of  a  true  eozoon,  since  every  form  of  life  to-day 
carries  in  its  body  the  record  of  untold  generations  of  struggle 
and  adaptation,  so  in  every  manifestation  of  consciousness 
there  is  a  complexity  due  to  the  mere  fact  that  it  has  been 
preceded  by  other  expressions  of  consciousness. 

24 


EVOLUTION   OF   RELIGION  25 

However,  though  we  cannot  know  precisely  the  nature  of 
really  primitive  forms,  we  can  describe  with  more  or  less 
exactitude  many  of  the  factors  which  have  tended  to  produce 
complexity  of  structure  and  function;  we  can  often  know 
also  with  some  precision  in  what  the  changes  have  consisted. 
This  is  true,  at  least,  on  the  biological  side.  In  the  case  of  the 
evolution  of  various  aspects  of  psychical  life,  there  is,  however, 
much  more  difficulty  in  reaching  a  satisfactory  statement,  and 
this  is  partly  because  we  do  not  keep  clearly  in  mind  the 
exact  nature  of  that  which  we  assume  has  undergone  a  develop- 
ment. 

It  seems  necessary  at  the  outset,  then,  to  raise  some  pre- 
liminary questions  as  to  the  nature  of  the  evolutionary  process 
which  may  reasonably  be  presumed  to  lie  back  of  religious 
phenomena. 

To  begin  with,  the  psychologist  can  hardly  rest  satisfied      |- 
with  the  assumption  that  the  religious  consciousness  is  a 
development  froan^gomejiltimate  r^^^  instinct  or  percep- 

tion. Such  terms  are  usually  used  very  loosely  by  students 
of  religious  phenomena.  In  many  cases  they  are  simply 
ways  of  saying,  under  the  guise  of  science,  that  the  reli- 
gious attitude  is  innate,  that  it  develops  from  some  orig- 
inal sense,  or  elemental  power.  This  is  certainly  the 
thought  which  Miiller,  Tiele,  and  Jastrow  convey  in  their 
attempts  to  trace  religion  to  a  'perception  of  the  infinite.' 
Jastrow  uses  'instinct'  as  interchangeable  with  'perception 
of  the  infinite.'  Brinton's  postulate  of  '  a  religiosity  of  man 
as  a  part  of  his  psychical  being'  is  closely  akin  to  the 
'  instinct- theory '  of  religion. 

It  is  only  in  name  that  such  theories  of  religion  are  scientific. 
Evolutionary  science  proves  almost  conclusively  that  instincts 
are  not  original,  elemental  endowments,  but  rather  products, 
modes  of  reaction,  built  up  in  the  course  of,  and  hence  defi- 


26  DEVELOPMENT   OF   RELIGION 

nitely  related  to,  the  process  of  organic  development.  They 
are  adjustments  of  the  organism  to  certain  features  of  the 
physical  environment  that  have  proved  of  importance  to  it  in 
the  struggle  for  existence.  It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  the 
fundamental  thing  about  an  instinct  is  that  it  is  a  mode  of 
overt  reaction,  and  that  neither  in  its  genesis  nor  in  its  func- 
tioning is  there  need  for  the  assumption  that  any  conscious 
process  or  processes  are  involved.  If  consciousness  has  any 
place  in  an  instinctive  reaction,  it  is  only  as  an  after-effect, 
or  especially  when  the  instinct,  imder  some  shift  of  conditions, 
ceases  to  work  smoothly,  or  fails  entirely.  Consciousness, 
in  other  words,  is  an  adjusting  apparatus  for  remedying  the 
deficiencies  of  instinct. 

To  hold  that  religion  is  an  instinct^  or  that  it  develops  from 
an  instinct,  can  mean  only  that  it  is  some  physiological  adjust- 
ment  to  the  environment  necessitated  by  the  liferprocess  or, 
j)pssibly,  thaFTlTs  some  conscious  attitude  aroused  by  the 
failure  of  such  an  aHJustment  to  function  properly.  In  either 
case,  however,  we  are  involved  in  a  serious  confusion.  In  no 
intelligible  way  can  the  religious  consciousness  or  religious 
acts  be  thought  of  as  directly  related  to  the  biological  struggle 
for  existence.  If  religion  is  to  be  called  an  instinct,  it  would 
certainly  necessitate  a  new  definition  of  instinct.  As  was  sug- 
gested in  a  foregoing  paragraph,  however,  the  real  thought 
which  those  writers  who  have  described  religion  as  an  instinct 
have  meant  to  convey  is  that  religion  is  something  original, 
or  innate,  in  man.  The  use  of  the  term  offers,  under  a  thin 
disguise  of  science,  a  point  of  view  that  is  utterly  opposed  to  all 
that  is  scientific.  The  scientist  cannot  be  satisfied  to  regard 
anything  as  innate.  His  so-called  ultimate  data  are  ultimate 
only  for  the  philosopher  or  for  the  non-scientific  mind.  The 
*  instinct-theory '  really  belongs  to  the  philosophy  rather  than 
to  the  psychology  of  religion. 


EVOLUTION   OF   RELIGION  27 

There  is  another   'instinct-theory,'    the  one  proposed  by 
Marshall/  which  at  first  sight  seems  to  be  free  from  the  diffi- 
culty suggested  above.     He  holds  that  religion  is  an  instinct  \ 
developed  from  acts  useful  to  the  race  as  a  whole,  but  often  \ 
injurious  to  the  individual,  and  actually  performed  by  the    I 
individual  in  the  face  of  consciously  recognized  self-interests.    / 
It  will  be  seen  that  instinct  is  here  conceived  more  scientifi- 
cally than  in  the  first  cases  cited,  but  the  theory  is  neverthe- 
less open  to  criticism.     It  is,  for  instance,  incredible  that  an 
instinct  should  have  arisen  which  does  not  and  never  did 
appeal  to  the  individual  in  some  way,  even  though  it  wrought 
him  injury  or  pain  in  the  end.     This  difficulty  is  not  relieved 
by  Marshall's  elaborate  attempt  to  show  that  an  instinct-act 
is  the  reaction  of  the  organism  as  a  whole,  while  acts  prompted 
by  reason  and  self-interest  are  only  partial  expressions  of  the 
organism.     The  theory  as  a  whole  we  cannot  discuss  here, 
further  than  to  say  that  it  is  only  by  reading  a  preconceived 
theory  into  the  facts  that  this  supposition  of  the  relationship 
of  instinct  to  reason  can  be  maintained. 

The  most  serious  difficulty,  however,  with  Marshall's  theory, 
as  that  theory  at  present  concerns  us,  is  of  accounting  for 
the  origin  of  religion  as  a  conscious  attitude,  even  though  it 
be  granted  that  that  attitude  is  based  upon  a  set  of  instinctive 
physical  adjustments.  Marshall  meets  the  objection  by  his 
theory  that  all  nervous  processes  are  accompanied  by  some 
measure  of  consciousness,  and  hence  that  an  instinct-act  has, 
of  necessity,  its  instinct-feeling.  On  this  basis,  apparently, 
he  would  hold  that  the  religious  attitude,  as  a  psychical  com- 
plex, is  gradually  built  up.  His  assumption  seems  to  us  to 
be  entirely  gratuitous.  It  amounts,  practically,  to  making 
religious  acts,  together  with  their  conscious  accompaniments, 
hereditary,  whereas  observation  seems  to  point  to  the  conclu- 

*  H.  R.  Marshall,  Instinct  and  Reason,  New  York,  1898. 


t  It  Kill/ 


<5P  THe 


28  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

sion  that  it  is  the  ability  to  perform  certain  movements  that  is 
inherited,  and  that  consciousness  accompanies  the  movements 
only  under  special  circumstances. 

We  ourselves  shall  try  to  show  that  the  religious  attitude 
has^  evolved  from  a  matrix  QL_actiyity  of  a  certain  kind,  but 
we  shall  contend  that  it  bears  a  direct  functional  relationship 
to  these  activities  rather  than  that  it  is  merely  their  parallel- 
istic  accompaniment.  We  gain  nothing  and  explain  nothing 
by  saying  that  religious  acts  are  in  some  way  advantageous  to 
the  race,  if  at  the  same  time  we  take  for  granted  what  is  really 
the  main  problem,  i.e.  that  the  complicated  religious  con- 
sciousness is  already  present,  provided  the  instinctive  activi- 
ties called  religious  are  at  hand.  As  we  conceive  it,  the  gen- 
eral problem  is  to  show  how  and  why,  given  certain  acts,  the 
religious  consciousness,  or  attitude,  has  been  built  up.  The 
attempt  to  conceive  religion  after  the  analogy  of  an  organic 
instinct  not  only  does  not  bring  us  to  the  main  problem,  it 
tends,  even,  to  make  us  ignore  it. 

A  further  word  is  required  regarding  the  theories  that  con- 
ceive religion  as  the  outcome  of  some  primitive  sense  or  per- 
ception. Jastrow,  after  asserting  that  religion  originates  in 
man's  perception  of  the  infinite,  continues:  ''The  further 
question  .  .  .  how  man  comes  to  possess  power  to  attain  to  a 
perception  of  the  infinite,  is  one  that  transcends  the  limits  of 
historical  investigation,  which  is  required  only  to  answer  the 
question  of  how  the  power  is  brought  into  action.  The 
power  itself,  like  the  religious  instinct,  the  emotional  possibili- 
ties, the  unsatisfied  longings,  and  the  intellectual  phases  of  his 
nature,  forms  part  of  man's  equipment,  from  which  every 
science  connected  with  man  necessarily  starts  out.  Just  as 
anthropology  assumes  man  to  be  existing  and  occupying  the 
place  proper  to  him  in  the  universe,  so  historical  science  starts 
with  man  as  a  being  endowed  with  reason,  certain  emotions, 


EVOLUTION  OF   RELIGION  29 

and  certain  instincts,  with  the  capacity  of  thought  and  the 
power  to  receive  impressions  on  his  mind."  * 

It  may  be  granted  that  the  above  assumptions  are  sufficient 
for  the  history  of  religion,  but  that  which  Jastrow  presup- 
poses it  should  be  the  business  of  psychology  to  explain. 
Moreover,  if  psychology  can  show  that  the  so-called  *  percep- 
tion of  the  infinite '  has  probably  had  a  natural  history  and  is 
therefore  susceptible  of  a  simpler  statement,  and,  further,  that 
it  is  not  a  capacity  which  can  be  placed  alongside  thinking 
as  a  sort  of  original  datum,  requiring  only  to  have  its  varied 
manifestations  traced  out,  historical  science  would  seem  to  be 
bound  to  take  these  things  into  account  in  its  treatment  of  the 
subject  of  religion. 

Jastrow  is  to  be  criticised,  not  because,  as  a  historian,  he 
assumes  a  religious  attitude  as  his  starting-point,  but  because 
he  holds  that  this  is  really  the  beginning  of  the  whole  matter, 
so  far  as  science  goes.  Thus,  in  harmony  with  his  theory, 
he  maintains  that  there  is  in  every  man  a  dormant  religious 
*  sense'  which  may  be  aroused  by  various  circumstances  of 
life;  for  example,  certain  practical  considerations  bring  'the 
religious  emotions  into  play,'  ^  as  if  they  were  already  there 
and  required  only  to  be  excited  to  activity.  This  sort  of 
statement  often  passes  for  psychological;  that  it  is  not  such, 
in  any  sense  of  the  word,  we  shall  trust  to  the  exposition  of  this 
and  the  following  chapters  to  prove.  The  naive  way  in  which 
psychological  concepts  are  used  in  works  on  the  science  of 
religion  is  further  illustrated  by  such  statements  as  the 
following:  "Granting  that  the  earliest  manifestations  of 
the  religious  life  are  purely  instinctive,  still  they  are  also 

*  Morris  Jastrow,  The  Study  of  Religion,  pp.  195  f.  Cf .  Tide,  The  Science 
of  Religion,  Vol.  11,  p.  233:  "It  is  man's  original,  unconscious,  innate  sense 
of  infinity  that  gives  rise  to  his  first  stammering  utterances  of  that  sense,  and 
all  his  beautiful  dreams  of  the  past  and  the  future." 

'  Op.  cit.,  p.  277.  • 


30  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

called  forth  by  a  recognition,  however  faint,  of  the  possibility 
of  establishing  proper  relations  between  man  and  the  universe 
about  him."  ^  Practically  everything  that  needs  explanation 
is  here  assumed,  the  thought  seeming  to  be  that  if  one  uses 
these  psychological  terms,  he  is  giving  a  psychological  ex- 
planation. The  sentence  above  quoted  seems  to  explain  the 
origin  thus :  Man  has  an  instinctive  perception  of  the  infinite 
and  an  intellectual  recognition  of  the  necessity  of  proper 
adjustment  to  it,  and,  presto !  he  has  religion. 

Conceptions  of  religion,  such  as  those  just  criticised, 
suggest  the  need  of  a  careful  definition  of  the  field  to  be  in- 
vestigated. The  science  of  religion,  by  failing  to  analyze 
these  very  things,  becomes  trivial.  We  can  make  little  prog- 
ress, as  was  stated  above,  in  understanding  the  evolution  of 
religion,  until  we  have  a  more  definite  notion  of  the  exact 
nature  of  the  material  which  we  suppose  has  undergone  an 
evolution. 

Entirely  aside  from  questions  of  origin,  ihefact  of  religion  of 
any  kind  in  certain  individuals  implies  some  sort  of  conscious 
states.  These  conscious  states,  whatever  else  they  are,  mayi 
be  described  in  part  at  least  as  valuational.^  The  religious 
consciousness  may  be  called  a  valuating  attitude  toward  some- 
thing real  or  imagined.  By  an  attitude  is  meant  an  organiza- 
tion of  various  mental  capacities  in  a  definite  way  about 
certain  situations,  or  problems  of  life.  Attitudes  are  cor- 
related with  the  situations,  not  in  the  sense  that  they  are  re- 
sults, but  simply  in  that  a  reaction  to  a  situation  necessitates 
such  an  organization  of  mental  elements  on  the  part  of  the 
individual.  Thus,  we  have  complex  aesthetic  attitudes,  intel- 
lectual attitudes,  scientific  attitudes,  attitudes  toward  gov- 
ernment, whether  democratic,  monarchial,  or  socialistic; 
attitudes  toward  marriage,  family  life,  education,  and  so  on 

^  Op.  cit.,  p.  277.  *  Hoffding,  Philosophy  of  Religion. 


EVOLUTION  OF  RELIGION  31 

almost  indefinitely ;  and  among  others  of  these  organizations 
of  disposition  and  ability  to  react,  is  the  religious  attitude. 
As  such  it  involves  an  emotional  recognition  of  values  of  some    \ 
kind,  an  intellectual  tendency  to  affirm  or  deny  them,  and  a     j 
positive  inclination  to  act  in  some  way  or  other  with  reference     / 
to  them.     Generically,  religion  does  not  differ  from  many  other 
attitudes  which  may  also  be  described  as  valuational. 

It  is  from  the  point  of  view  of  religion  as  a  type  of  the  valua- 
tional consciousness  that  we  may  probably  find  a  real  psy- 
chological truth  in  the  conceptions  of  Miiller,  Tiele,  and 
Jastrow,  referred  to  in  the  preceding  paragraphs.  The 
'perception  of  the  infinite,'  if  it  means  anything  at  all,  must 
refer  to  the  feeling  for  some  sort  of  value.  Perception,  as 
the  term  occurs  here,  is  evidently  not  used  in  a  psychological 
sense,  but  rather  as  an  attitude  assumed  toward  something 
felt  in  some  way  to  exist  or  to  be  true.  When  Jastrow  says 
that  there  is  at  least  some  recognition  in  man  of  the  possibility 
of  establishing  proper  relations  between  himself  and  the 
universe,  he  undoubtedly  refers  to  a  genuine  conscious  state 
which,  as  psychologists,  we  must  regard  as  an  aspect  of  this 
evaluating  attitude.  This  also  is  evidently  the  meaning  of 
the  words  of  Tiele,  quoted  on  a  preceding  page.  ''Why," 
he  asks  in  another  place,  "is  man  discontented  with  his 
condition  and  surroundings?"^  If  he  is  dissatisfied,  we 
should  say  it  is  probably  because  he  has  some  notion  of  values 
which  he  has  not  yet  fully  realized.  Even  supposing  that 
men  have  God  revealed  to  them,  why  should  they  try  to  put 
themselves  in  relation  to  him?^  This  question  suggests 
that  rcl  don  is  not  merely  a  belief  in  some  fact  of  the  universe, 
but  til:  I  it  also  involves  appreciation  and  adjustment,  the 
apprec'Cvtion  of  values  and  an  active  attitude  toward  them. 

There  have  been  many  attempts  to  find  the  common  element 

^  Op.  ciL,  Vol.  I,  p.  228.  2  Qf  xiele,  op.  ciL,  p.  211. 


32 


DEVELOPMENT   OF   RELIGION 


of  the  various  religions  of  the  world,  but  with  small  success. 

>*  The  idea  of  a  god  or  deity  is  certainly  not  universal,  nor  is 

/    there  any  other  objective  content  or  belief  which  can  be  found 

'       in  all  religions.     The  common  element,  if  there  is  one,  must 

rather  be  sought  on  the  psychic  side,  in  the  form  of  some 

fsort  of  attitude  or  disposition  which  can  be  properly  called 
religious.     An  examination  of  all  religions,  whether  of  savage 
or  of  civilized  peoples,  reveals  in  them  all  an  appreciative 
/        attitude  toward  some  sort  of  values.     These  values  may  range 
/         from  the  secret  names  and  the  sacred   bull-roarers  of  the 
\^  Australians  to  the-  conception  of  a  divine  organization  of  the 

\         universe,  demanding  of  every  individual  purity  of  heart,  up- 

\ ^  tightness  of  conduct. 

The  feeling  for  worth,  or  value,  might  well  be  judged  a 

primary  psychic  element.     Perhaps  it  is  not  as  primitive  as 

mere  feeling  or  cognition,  but  at  any  rate  it  is  a  relatively 

/    simple  conscious  state,  the  genesis  and  development  of  which 

can  be  traced  with  some  assurance.    There  are,  of  course, 

I        many  values  that  are  not  religious,  and  there  are  therefore 

/  many  value  attitudes  which  have  no  religious  significance. 

/  One  of  the  first  problems  will  then  be  that  of  determining 

the  circumstances  under  which  religious  attitudes  have  been 

differentiated  from  those  other  conscious  states  which  also  may 

be  described  as  valuational.     As  far  as  psychology  can  deal 

with  the  evolution  of  religion,  it  should  be  its  task  to  inquire 

into  how  the  valuating  attitude  arose,  how  it  developed,  the 

causes  which  lead  it  to  take  this  form  and  that;  why,  for 

instance,  it  is  found  variously  stated  in  such  terms  as  deities, 

ideals,  ancestors,  spirits,  forces  of  nature,  or  culture-heroes. 

Whatever  else  there  is  about  religion  will  be  comparatively 

easy  to  explain,  when  we  have  once  reached  an  understanding 

regarding  its  conceptions  of  worth. 

We  have  rejected  the  theory  that  the  religious  consciousness 


EVOLUTION  OF  RELIGION  33 

has  evolved  from  some  sort  of  innate  religiosity.    We  may 
now  say,  further,  from  what  we  know  of  the  development  of   \ 
attitudes  in  general,  that  the  student  of  the  evolution  of  reli-     ' 
gion  is  not  concerned  with  an  increase  in  absolute  mentality 
of  any  sort,  but  rather  with  the  organization  of  successively 
more  complex  psychic  systems  within  a  matrix  of  psychic 
capacities  which  have  not  undergone  much  absolute  change 
since  the  first  appearance  of  the  human  species.     As  far  as  \ 
mental  capacity,  per  se,  is  concerned,  the  natural  races  of  \ 
to-day  are  not  apparently  inferior  to  the  culture  races.    If  this   1 
is  the  case,  it  has  important  bearings  upon  the  question  of  L 
what  sort  of  evolution,  if  any,  has  taken  place  in  the  religious  ,' 
consciousness  of  man. 

Let  us  consider  the  question  on  the  side  of  general  men- 
tality. Anthropological  literature  contains  much  material  that 
is  favorable  to  the  view  that  the  absolute  mental  status  of  the 
primitive  races  of  to-day  is  comparatively  high.     Thus :  — 

"  With  the  development  of  the  special  organs  of  sense, 
memory,  and  consequent  ability  to  compare  present  ex- 
periences with  past,  with  inhibition  or  the  ability  to  decline 
to  act  on  a  stimulus,  and,  finally,  with  abstraction,  or  the 
power  of  separating  general  from  particular  aspects,  we 
have  a  condition  where  the  organism  sits  still,  as  it  were, 
and  picks  and  chooses  its  reactions  to  the  outer  world; 
and  by  working  in  certain  lines,  to  the  exclusion  of  others, 
it  gains  in  its  turn  control  of  the  environment  and  begins 
to  reshape  it."  * 

And  further :  — 

"  In  respect  to  brain  structure  and  the  more  important 
mental  faculties,  we  find  that  no  race  is  radically  unlike  the 
others." ' 

*  W.  I.  Thomas,  Sex  and  Society,  p.  252.  *  Ibid.,  p.  272. 

D 


34  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

The  fact  that  the  modern  savage,  taken  in  his  accustomed 
environment,  does  not  seem  inferior  to  the  civilized  man  in 
memory,  abstraction,  inhibition,  mechanical  ingenuity,  lends 
plausibility  to  the  theory  that  progress  has  been  in  other  ways 
than  in  mere  increase  of  mental  capacity  as  such. 

The  mental  capacity  of  different  people  as  well  as  of  various 
races  may  be  much  alike,  while  their  actual  mental  activity 
varies  widely.  This  is  due  to  difference  in  stimulating  condi- 
tions, or  opportunity.  It  is  in  this  respect  that  the  civilized 
man  differs  from  the  savage,  and  it  is  also  probably  in  this  re- 
spect that  the  modern  man  differs  most  from  the  primitive 
man,  after  the  human  type  of  mentality  was  once  established  in 
him.  Psychic  evolution,  after  the  first  dawn  of  self -conscious- 
ness, has  been,  in  other  words,  chiefly  an  evolution  of  situa- 
tions stimulating  to  certain  types  of  activity,  disposition, 
and  attitude.  A  man  of  the  white  race  stands  on  a  vast  ob- 
jective accumulation  of  culture,  or  of  the  products  of  intellect. 
He  can  do  complicated  things  with  intricate  machinery 
because  there  is  a  complicated  mechanical  environment  to 
stimulate  him.  He  can  think  subtle  trains  of  thought  be- 
cause there  is  such  a  thought  environment,  in  which  he  may 
place  himself  if  he  so  desires.  His  psychic  life  is  a  more 
or  less  direct  counterpart  of  the  organization  of  the  world 
about  him.     As  Thomas  says :  — 

"  The  fundamental  explanation  of  the  difference  in  the 
mental  life  of  two  groups  is  not  that  the  capacity  of  the 
brain  to  do  work  is  different,  but  that  the  attention  is  not 
in  the  two  cases  stimulated  and  engaged  along  the  same 
lines.  Whenever  society  furnishes  copies  and  stimulations 
of  a  certain  kind,  a  body  of  knowledge,  and  a  technique, 
practically  all  its  members  are  able  to  work  on  the  plan  and 
scale  in  vogue  there,  and  members  of  an  alien  race,  who 


.^  EVOLUTION   OF   RELIGION  35 

become  acquainted  in  a  real  sense  with  the  system,  can 
work  under  it.  But  when  society  does  not  furnish  the 
stimulations,  or  when  it  has  preconceptions  which  tend 
to  inhibit  the  run  of  attention  in  given  lines,  then  the  indi- 
vidual shows  no  intelligence  in  these  lines."* 

On  widely  different  planes  of  culture,  the  difference  is  not 
one  as  to  the  mental  powers  involved,  the  savage  having  the 
same  faculties  as  does  the  civilized ;  the  difference  is  rather  in 
the  direction  of  their  use. 

These  considerations  regarding  the  evolution  of  mentality  in 
general  may  be  applied  directly  to  the  development  of  religious 
attitudes.  Each  new  generation  comes  into  possession  of  a 
certain  environment  which  stimulates  it  to  particular  modes 
of  activity.  An  environment,  social  and  natural,  may  be 
said  to  have  correlated  with  it  a  certain  type  of  mental  activity, 
especially  on  the  part  of  those  who  are  born  in  it.  If  one 
generation  after  another  continues  in  a  given  type  of  situation, 
and  reacts  to  it  in  about  the  same  way,  we  may  be  sure  that 
the  mental  concomitants  will  continue  generally  the  same. 
What  is  transmitted  from  generation  to  generation  is,  then, 
certain  sorts  of  reactions  or  conditions  which  provoke  such 
reactions.  The  mental  states  accompanying  these  reactions, 
all  their  emotional  values,  and  the  entire  set  of  psychic  dis- 
positions associated  therewith,  may  be  said  to  be  transmitted 
by  social  heredity. 

We  are  not  here  concerned  with  the  problem  of  why  the 
external  opportunities  are  greater  among  some  peoples  than 
among  others,  but  rather  to  show  that  complexity  of  psychic 
life  depends  on  opportunity  afforded  for  its  exercise;  and 
further,  that  this  complexity  is  not  necessarily  bred  into  the 
race;  that  is,  it  does  not  become  a  part  of  its  original,  or 

^  Thomas,  op.  cit.,  p.  282. 


36  DEVELOPMENT  OF  RELIGION 

instinctive  nature.  Given  the  same  external  environment  and 
the  same  stimulating  problems,  each  new  generation,  as  it 
reacts,  finds  itself  in  possession  of  the  attitudes  and  disposi- 
tions of  its  predecessors. 

The  chief  problem  of  the  evolution  of  religion  may  then 
be  restated  as  that  of  showing  how  situations  affording 
opportunity  for  certain  types  of  reaction  have  been  built  up. 
Can  there,  then,  be  a  psychology  of  religious  development? 
We  answer  in  the  affirmative,  because  in  analyzing  these 
situations  we  are  stating  the  objective  conditions  for  the 
appearance  of  the  religious  attitude.  Whatever  may  be 
/possible  in  the  way  of  an  analysis  of  the  mental  attitude, 
iper  se,  must  rest  ultimately  upon  some  account  of  the  objective 
conditions  of  its  appearance.  These  pass  on  from  one  gen- 
eration to  another,  and  are  the  means  of  keeping  alive,  or  of 
arousing,  the  mental  concomitants. 

The  religious  consciousness  is,  then,  first  of  all  an  attitude 
rather  than  an  instinct  or  a  'perception.'  ^  It  is  an  attitude 
toward  certain  values,  imagined  or  real.  It  is,  moreover,  an 
attitude  which  may  truly  be  said  to  have  been  gradually  evolved, 
and  yet  its  presence  in  any  given  individual  is  largely  a  matter 
of  social  heredity.  The  present  writer  can  see  no  reason  for 
assuming  that  any  attitude  or  disposition,  even  the  aesthetic  or 
religious,  has  in  any  sense  been  bred  into  the  race  as  an  instinct. 
The  fact  that  there  is  no  material  difference  in  the  intellectual 
faculties  of  widely  separate  stages  of  culture  seems  to  point  un- 
questionably to  the  view  that  the  seeming  differences  are  the 
result  of  the  objective  accumulation  of  certain  kinds  of  stimuh. 
If  space  permitted,  abundant  evidence  could  be  adduced  to 
prove  that  the  presence  or  absence  of  these  secondary  forms  of 

*  It  is  possible  that  those  who  hold  that  religion  is  an  instinct  would  main- 
tain that  they  were  quite  willing  to  call  it  an  attitude.  If  so,  we  should  prob- 
ably dififer,  nevertheless,  on  the  question  of  its  origin. 


EVOLUTION  OF  RELIGION  37 

consciousness,  for  example,  the  aesthetic,  is,  in  the  case  of  the 
masses  of  any  people,  dependent  upon  social  suggestion  in 
some  form  or  other.  This  view  of  the  matter  in  no  sense  de- 
preciates the  finer  elaborations  of  consciousness.  It  simply 
regards  them  as  constructions  rather  than  as  original  traits. 

We  have  just  suggested  that  the  religious  attitude  should, 
genetically,  be  regarded  as  a  'construct/  determined  in  large 
measure  by  various  objective  conditions  of  the  life-process. 
If  this  is  the  correct  view  of  the  matter,  the  problem  of  the 
evolution  of  religion  is  intimately  connected  with  the  ethnol- 
ogy of  religion.  The  nature  of  this  connection  we  shall  now 
try  to  state  as  accurately  as  may  be  possible.  In  doing  so,  we 
come  to  the  second  phase  of  the  problem  proposed  in  the  first 
paragraph  of  the  chapter,  that  is,  as  to  the  general  conditions 
which  have  mediated  the  development  of  the  religious  attitude. 

These  general  conditions  have  been  the  overt  activities 
connected  with  the  various  phases  of  the  life -process  of  primi- 
tive races.  The  practical  and  playful  activities  of  savage 
races,  their  rituals  and  ceremonials  of  all  sorts,  are  not 
merely  expressions  of  preexisting  conscious  attitudes  of 
various  kinds,  they  have  been  of  primary  importance  in  the 
development  of  those  attitudes  themselves.  The  trend  of 
modern  psychology  is  toward  the  view  that  an  act  is  not 
merely  the  reflex  of  a  psychical  state,  but  that  the  psychical 
state  is  as  truly  the  reflex  of  an  earlier  act.^  If  such  is 
the  case,  the  evolution  of  any  variety  of  conscious  attitude 
must  be  intimately  connected  with  the  accompanying  overt 
activity  of  the  being  in  question.  That  is  to  say,  the  overt 
activity  is  not  only  the  index  of  the  hidden  internal  states  of 

^  Cf.  John  Dewey,  "The  reflex  arc  concept,"  Psychological  Review,  Vol. 
Ill,  No.  3.  Vide  also  James's  theory  of  emotion,  Principles  of  Psychology; 
and  Judd,  Studies  from  the  Yale  Psychological  Laboratory,  Vol.  I,  No.  i,  pp. 
199  ff. 


38  DEVELOPMENT  OF  RELIGION 

consciousness,  but  is  also  a  factor  of  prime  importance  in  the 
very  production  of  these  states. 

There  has  been  a  tendency  on  the  part  of  some  to  separate 
sharply  the  psychology  of  religion  from  the  ethnology  of  religion 
and  from  all  aspects  of  the  history  of  religious  practices  and 
observances.  Thus  it  has  been  held  that  the  psychological 
study  deals  with  '*  the  feelings,  the  thoughts,  the  desires,  the 
impulses  (as  far  as  they  enter  into  religion),  while  the  historical 
and  social  study  deals  with  the  results  of  these  desires,  thoughts, 
and  feelings,  when  they  have  been  transformed  in  a  process  of 
social  consolidation  and  set  up  as  objects  of  belief  (doctrines, 
beliefs),  or  as  modes  of  worship  (rites  and  ceremonials).  .  .  . 
The  most  important  remark  to  be  made  concerning  these  two 
classes  of  facts  is  that  the  former  owes  its  existence  to  the  latter ; 
corporate  religion  owes  its  existence  to  the  individual  religious 
experiences,  in  the  same  sense  as  a  political  organization  owes 
its  existence  to  the  individuals  composing  it.  Beliefs  and 
ceremonials  are,  in  a  way,  higher  products  resulting  from  the 
elemental  experiences  of  the  individual. "  ^  The  assumption, 
in  other  words,  is  that  religious  states  of  mind  exist  first  of  all 
in  the  individual,  and  that  only  later  do  they  objectify  them- 
selves in  the  social  group.  The  same  author  says,  "...  the 
Psychology  of  Religion  deals  with  the  formative  elements  of 
corporate  religion,  while  the  History  of  Religion  deals  with 
the  complex  products."  ^ 

The  primacy  of  the  subjective  state,  as  here  assumed,  may 
well  be  questioned.  The  analogy  between  religion  with  its 
objective  manifestations  and  the  individual  and  political  or- 
ganization is  certainly  fallacious.^    The  question  here  is  not 

*  James  Leuba,  "  Introduction  to  the  psychology  of  religion,"  The  Monist, 
Vol.  XI,  p.  197  (condensed). 

*  Ibid.,  pp.  197,  198. 

*  Professor  Leuba  has  read  this  discussion,  and  states  that  his  position  was 


EVOLUTION  OF   RELIGION  39 

as  to  whether  a  certain  type  of  overt  process  presupposes  the 
existence  of  individual  agents;  that,  of  course,  goes  without 
saying.  The  question  is  rather  as  to  the  relationship  between 
the  external  act  and  the  internal  attitude.  It  is  so  evidently 
true  in  adult  life  that  action  follows  thought,  that  it  is  difficult 
to  think  of  the  mental  state  as  any  other  than  primary.  But 
as  suggested  earlier  in  this  chapter,  the  mental  state  is  just  as 
truly  connected  with  the  preceding  active  state  as  it  is  with 
the  activity  which  follows.  In  fact,  it  is  through  antecedent 
tendencies  to  action  that  mental  processes  of  all  sorts  have 
been  built  up.  Unquestionably,  instinctive,  and  reflex  action 
is  more  primitive  than  consciousness  or  consciously  directed 
activity.  The  appearance  of  the  latter  may  be  taken  as  evi- 
dence that  the  reflex  or  instinctive  equipment  of  the  organism 
has  proved  insufficient  to  meet  all  the  demands  of  the  environ- 
ment that  are  requisite  to  life.  Whether  we  are  able  to  state 
with  precision  all  the  terms  in  the  relationship  between  overt 
mechanically  controlled  action  and  that  which  is  consciously 
directed,  it  is  certainly  safe  to  assume  that  the  conscious  pro- 
cesses are  truly  of  the  nature  of  specializations  within  the 
primitive  reactions,  rendering  possible  the  attainment  of  more 
complex  results  or  ends.  The  various  types  of  mental  con- 
tents may  be  regarded  as  moments,  or  phases  in  the  differ- 
entiation of  the  instinctive  or  habitual  act.  They  stand  for 
certain  stages  in  the  separation  of  the  stimulus  from  the  re- 
sponse, or  for  certain  types  of  tension  which  have  arisen  in 
the  simpler  and,  at  most,  not  acutely  conscious  activities. 
Consequently,  all  such  mental  elements  as  ideas,  emotions, 
and  volitions,  or  whatever  else  we  may  choose  to  call  them, 
are  products  rather  than  original  data,  a  fact  which  must  be 
borne  in  mind  in  all  discussions  involving  them.     That  is, 

taken  with  quite  a  different  problem  in  mind.  We  retain  the  criticism, 
however,  for  the  sake  of  bringing  out  our  own  point  more  clearly. 


40  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

1  mental  processes  are  in  some  way  differentiations  out  of 
previous  overt  activity,  as  well  as  the  causes  of  some  kind 
of  subsequent  activity.' 

'.  In  general,  a  complicated,  intensive,  active  life  demands  and 
jhas  a  complicated  psychic  accompaniment.  To  see  that  this  is 
true,  we  need  only  compare  the  amount  of  mental  activity  re- 
quired by  the  modern  captain  of  finance  or  industry  with  that 
necessary  to  the  rustic  who  is  far  removed  from  the  active  stress 
of  life.  The  circle  of  ideas,  the  comprehension  of  human 
nature,  the  ability  to  execute  complicated  acts,  is  immeasurably 
greater  in  one  than  in  the  other,  and  shall  we  doubt  that  the  con- 
trast is  due  to  the  difference  in  the  situation  faced  by  the  two  ? 
If  it  is  urged  that  there  is  very  probably  a  native  capacity  in 
one  that  is  not  in  the  other,  we  reply  that  even  that  native 
capacity  has  been  selected  and  enhanced  by  just  such  stimu- 
lating environments.  However,  if  there  is  no  difference  in 
mental  capdcity^  per  se,  there  is  certainly  more  mentality 
where  there  is  greater  opportunity  for  its  use. 

On  the  side  of  race  development,  it  maybe  said  that  the  com- 
plex mental  states  of  the  modern  man,  his  almost  unlimited 
powers  of  ideal  combination  and  construction,  his  elaborate 
concepts  and  his  ability  to  utilize  them  in  subtle  trains  of 
thought,  his  desires,  his  judgments  of  worth,  his  feeling 
attitudes,  varying  from  the  simplest  recognition  of  pleasure 
and  pain  to  the  appreciation  of  the  most  refined  aesthetic, 
moral,  and  religious  values,  have  been  made  possible  by  the 
active  attitude  he  has  assumed  toward  the  world  and  his  fellow- 
men.  This  active  attitude,  this  impulse  to  grapple  with  some- 
thing, is  primary,  while  the  subjective  states  of  the  individual  > 
seem  to  be  products. 

*  For  a  fuller  discussion  of  these  points,  with  illustrations  from  child 
psychology,  the  reader  is  referred  to  the  author's  work,  The  Psychology  of 
Child  Development,  2d  ed,,  pp.  92-105. 


EVOLUTION   OF   RELIGION  41 

The  principles  just  stated  are  applicable  not  only  to  the  de- 
velopment of  psychic  life  itself  in  both  individual  and  race,  but 
also  to  the  more  complex  forms  of  psychic  life,  which  we  have 
called  attitudes,  or  dispositions.    Thus  the  aesthetic,  the  re- 
ligious, the  scientific,  and  the  domestic  attitudes  are  moments 
in  the  development  of  more  and  more  complicated  types  of  reac- 
tion.   To  what  extent  these  attitudes  have  been  bred  into  the 
race,  it  is  impossible  to  say.     As  shown  earlier  in  this  chapter, 
their  appearance  in  the  individual  is  so  intimately  associated 
with  the  character  of  the  social  environment  that  it  is  entirely 
probable  that  social  heredity  plays  a  preponderating  part  in  J 
their  appearance  in  succeeding  generations.    The  objective  con-  % 
ditions  which  first  produced  them  are  passed  on  and  each  new  \ 
generation  thus  falls  into  a  certain  mould,  finds  itself  stimulated  \ 
to  certain  kinds  of  activities.    The  channels  for  the  expression   I 
of  its  impulses  being  thus  more  or  less  predetermined,  it  is 
inevitable  that  the  same  conscious  attitudes  should  appear  as 
were  possessed  by  the  generation  preceding  it. 

In  view  of  these  general  principles,  it  may  well  be  asked 
whether  religious  practices,  which  some  authors,  as  we  have 
seen,  consign  entirely  to  the  sphere  of  history,  have  not  posi- 
tive psychological  value.  It  is  true  that  the  overt  practices,  the 
rituals,  as  we  see  them,  are  to  a  certain  extent  the  outcome  of 
earlier  subjective  states.  But  that  this  is  the  case  with  primi- 
tive rituals  is  another  question.  The  tendency  to-day,  among 
students  of  primitive  life,  is  to  regard  all  such  customs  as  in 
large  measure  the  products  of  a  relatively  unconscious  evo- 
lution.^ The  customs,  the  rituals,  the  language  of  primal 
man,  were  definitely  related  to  the  situations  and  problems 
which  touched  his  life.  Since  they  are  the  expression  in 
terms  of  human  nature  of  these  situations,  may  we  not  go 
further  and  hold  that,  far  from  being  merely  the  expression 
^  Cf.  Dewey  and  Tufts,  Ethics,  pp.  52  f. 


42  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

of  the  religious  attitudes  of  groups  of  individuals,  they  were 
and  are  in  a  very  genuine  sense  the  causes  and  sustainers  of 
these  attitudes  ?  In  other  v^rords,  the  position  here  assumed, 
and  which  can  be  justified  only  through  the  entire  series  of  chap- 
ters which  follow,  is  this :  However  much  it  may  be  possible 
to  analyze  the  fully  developed  religious  consciousness  in  isola- 
tion, genetically  it  must  be  considered  along  with  these  objec- 
tive conditions  which  it  is  related  to,  not  as  cause,  but  as  effect. 
Some  such  position  as  here  taken  is  the  logical  outcome  of 
the  rejection  of  religion  as  an  instinct,  or  as  something  original 
and  innate.  From  such  a  point  of  view,  the  evolution  of  reli- 
gion is  a  definite  problem  of  social  psychology,  and  is 
capable  of  investigation  according  to  strictly  scientific  methods. 
To  make  the  objective  manifestations  of  religion  positive  fac- 
tors in  the  development  of  the  psychic  state  called  religious, 
will  not  only  render  each  more  intelligible,  but  will  also  help 
to  a  better  understanding  of  the  relation  between  ancient  and 
modern  types  of  religion.  From  such  a  point  of  view  we  shall 
be  led  to  say  that  there  is  no  such  thing,  for  instance,  as  a  de- 
tached sense  of  duty,  or  of  sin,  which  is  applied  here  and  there 
as  opportunity  may  offer  or  render  appropriate,  but  rather  that 
these  feelings  represent  certain  crises  in  action,  and  that  the 
character  of  the  preceding  action  has  been  of  direct  importance 
in  the  determination  of  the  character  of  the  resulting  con- 
scious states.  This  is  certainly  true  of  the  child's  first  sense 
of  duty.  Adult  society  furnishes  the  atmosphere  which  inter- 
prets the  emotional  values  felt  by  children,  and  which  builds 
up  the  complicated  social  attitudes  such  as  are  named  above. 
To  what  extent  could  a  child  be  taught,  or  have  imparted  to 
him,  a  sense  of  duty  or  a  sense  of  affection  or  of  remorse  aside 
from  contact  with  the  real  situations  of  life  ?  His  moral  and 
religious  sentiments  are  the  products  of,  the  evidences  of,  the 
ways  he  has  reacted  toward  life. 


EVOLUTION  OF   RELIGION  43 

In  view  of  these  things,  we  may  define  the  problem  of  the 
pages  which  follow  as  that  of  showing  how  the  religious  con- 
sciousness has  been  built  up,  or  differentiated,  from  a  back- 
ground of  overt  activity  and  relatively  objective  phases  of 
consciousness.  The  assumption  underlying  the  problem  is 
that  the  religious  attitude  of  mind  has  had  a  natural  history, 
that  there  was  a  time  in  the  history  of  the  race  when  a  defi- 
nite religious  attitude  did  not  exist,  and  that,  in  its  genesis 
and  in  its  development,  it  has  been  conditioned  by  the  same 
laws  according  to  which  other  mental  attitudes  have  come 
into  being.^ 

^  Cf .  Nansen,  "  Religious  ideas  must  be  ascribed  to  the  same  natural  laws 
which  condition  all  other  phenomena,"  Eskimo  Life,  p.  211;  "Religious 
ideas  must  ...  be  reckoned  as  a  natural  product  of  the  human  mind  itself, 
under  the  influence  of  its  surroundings,"  ihid.,  p.  209. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  CONSCIOUSNESS  OF  VALUE 

In  the  preceding  chapter  the  religious  attitude  was  said  to  be 
a  special  development  of  the  valuating  type  of  consciousness. 
If  such  is  the  case,  it  is  evident  that  some  preliminary  inquiry 
into  the  origin  and  development  of  the  value-consciousness,  in 
general,  should  accompany  a  study  of  religious  origins. 

The  appreciative  or  valuating  attitude  of  mind  may,  with 
some  justice,  be  held  to  be  a  relatively  primary  form  of  con- 
scious process.  The  world  does  not  present  itself  first  of  all 
to  us  as  a  mass  of  objective  facts,  with  little  or  no  relation  to 
ourselves  and  the  things  we  may  be  striving  to  do.  It  is  rather 
as  a  world  of  values  and  interests  that  it  is  first  apprehended ; 
the  world  of  cold  fact  is  an  abstraction  from  this  earlier  and 
more  primitive  aspect  of  things  and  events.  That  is  to  say^ 
what  we  call,  for  want  of  a  better  term,  the  appreciative 
attitude  ^  is  directly  connected  with  man's  active  relation 
to  his  environment,  both  physical  and  social.  The  values 
which  we  recognize,  the  appreciations  which  we  feel,  are  built 
up  in  us  by  the  way  we  take  hold  of  our  world  and  deal  with  it. 
The  things  that  interest  us,  the  acts  that  we  approve  or  dis- 
approve, the  ends,  or  goals,  of  action  such  as  we  come  to 
regard  as  worth  while,  find  their  way  into  our  conscious  ex- 
perience because  we  are  most  of  the  time  striving  to  do  some- 
thing.   It  is  in  this  way  that  they  establish  their  relationship 

*  We  do  not,  in  this  discussion,  attempt  to  dififerentiate  the  value- judgment, 
a  logical  process,  from  the  more  immediate  type  of  consciousness  found  in 
value-appreciation.  We  are  not  here  concerned  with  a  problem  of  psychologi- 
cal analysis,  and  we  may  therefore  use  the  term  appreciative  or  valuational 
attitude,  meaning  by  it  a  psychic  complex  which  includes  the  different 
aspects  of  the  apprehension  of  value  in  their  functional,  organic  relationship. 

44 


THE  CONSCIOUSNESS   OF  VALUE  45 

to  us.  At  some  later  time  these  objects,  acts,  and  ideals  may 
become  so  familiar  that  they  may  be  cognized^^  relatively  at 
least,  independently  of  our  purposes  or  doings. 

The  world  for  most  of  us,  then,  whether  we  are  civilized 
adults,  children,  or  primitive  savages,  is  a  body  of  more  or  less 
organized  interests  and  values,  which  has  grown  up  and 
acquired  definite  form  out  of  the  instinctive  and  impulsive 
substrate  of  our  conscious  life.  The  method  by  which  these 
attitudes  of  interest  and  appreciation  have  developed  from 
this  substratum  of  activity,  and  the  place  of  these  activities 
in  rendering  valuations  permanent,  form  a  problem  which 
requires  further  inquiry  and  illustration. 

We  have  said  that  acts  of  some  sort  precede  a  consciousness 
of  value  in  a  given  direction,  and  that  these  acts  are,  to  start 
with,  mere  instinctive  and  impulsive  movements.  These 
movements,  in  and  of  themselves,  involve  little  or  no  conscious- 
ness, and  a  person  whose  behavior  rests  exclusively  upon 
this  plane  can  hardly  be  said  to  be  interested  in  what  he 
is  doing  nor  to  valuate  or  appreciate  the  things  with  which 
he  may  come  in  contact.  What  he  does,  he  does  uncon- 
sciously or  with  a  low  degree  of  consciousness.  From  this 
simplest  type  of  behavior  there  are  all  gradations  of  removal. 
At  the  lower  extreme,  the  stimulus  of  the  moment  gains  its 
immediate  and  direct  response;  at  the  other  extreme,  the 
response  to  the  stimulus  is  long  deferred,  and  many  inter- 
mediate acts  are  performed  before  the  end  can  be  realized. 
This  delay  in  reaching  the  end  and  the  consequent  appear- 
ance of  various  preliminary  activities  are  the  elementary 
conditions  which  make  a  consciousness  of  value  possible.^ 

^  We  do  not  ignore  the  social  factor  in  the  valuational  consciousness.  It 
is  of  the  greatest  importance,  but  we  shall  reserve  it  for  treatment  in  another 
connection.  Here  we  wish  to  confine  ourselves  to  the  connections  which 
subsist  between  appreciation  and  action,  or,  more  specifically,  action  as  it 
appears  in  social  customs. 


46  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

The  mere  partaking  of  the  utilities  of  life,  the  use  of  clothing 
and  shelter,  of  fire  and  weapons,  whether  by  individuals 
or  by  social  groups,  does  not  insure  the  presence  of  such  a 
consciousness.^  In  a  very  general  sense,  of  course,  it  is  true 
that  everything  which  attracts  attention  may  be  the  sub- 
ject of  a  value-judgment ;  ^  such  things  may  excite  desire 
or  aversion,  may  be  felt  to  be  either  good  or  bad.  But,  we 
repeat,  it  is  only  as  the  individual  begins  to  organize  him- 
self about  these  objects  of  attention,  only  as  they  become 
the  focus  of  his  habits,  can  their  full  significance  become  ex- 
plicit for  him.  The  mere  inability  to  attain  immediately 
a  wished-for  goal  tends  to  isolate  it  in  a  peculiar  way  and 
bring  it  to  the  focus  of  attention.  The  steps  necessary  to 
the  attainment  also  tend  to  stand  out  and  are  recognized  as 
having  value  with  reference  to  the  desired  end.  The  fun- 
damental point,  however,  is  that  the  greater  the  number  of 
things  which  a  person  does  with  reference  to  an  object  of 
attention,  the  more  completely  the  significance  of  that  object 
develops  for  him.  This  is  true  whether  the  acts  are  organi- 
cally related  to  the  object,  or  whether  they  are  connected 
with  it  by  mere  chance  association. 

Let  us  try  to  determine  the  main  conditions  under 
which  activity  develops  from  the  primitive  unconscious  type 
into  all  the  manifold  forms  which  prevail  even  in  savage 
society.  The  general  situation  is  thus  described  by  Dewey: 
"  With  civilized  man  all  sorts  of  intermediate  terms  come  in 
between  the  stimulus  and  the  overt  act,  and  between  the  overt 
act  and  the  final  satisfaction.     Man  no  longer  defines  his 

^  Vide  Giddings,  Principles  of  Sociology,  pp.  40  f .,  240,  for  an  apparently 
opposite  view. 

^  HofTding,  Philosophy  of  Religion,  p.  139,  "It  attracts  attention  and  is 
therefore  involuntarily  associated  with  what  is  about  to  happen,  with  the 
possibility  of  attaining  the  desired  end."  Reference  here  is  to  choice  of 
fetich  object 


THE  CONSCIOUSNESS  OF   VALUE  47 

end  to  be  the  final  satisfaction  of  hunger  as  such.  It  is  so 
complicated  and  loaded  with  all  kinds  of  technical  activities, 
associations,  deliberations,  and  social  divisions  of  labor,  that 
conscious  attention  and  interest  are  in  the  process  and  its 
content.  Even  in  the  crudest  agriculture,  means  are  developed 
to  the  point  where  they  demand  attention  on  their  own  account, 
and  control  the  formation  and  use  of  habits  to  such  an  extent 
that  they  are  the  central  interests,  while  the  food  process  and 
enjoyment  as  such  is  incidental  and  occasional. "  ^ 

The  connection  between  primitive  religious  practices  and 
these  complications  of  direct  action  which  cluster  about  the 
economic  utilities  of  life  has  often  been  indicated.    Thus 
W.  R.  Smith ^  and  G.  A.  Barton^  have  shown  rather  fully  that 
many  of  the  rituals  and  practices  of  the  primitive  Semites  were 
the  development  of  food  activities  centring  about  the  care 
of  flocks  and  the  culture  of  the  date  palm.     Other  primitive 
religions  abound  in  illustrations  of   the  same  sort.^     The 
significance  of  these  facts  has,  however,  never  been  fully 
pointed  out.     It  is  not  merely    true   that  many  religious 
practices  take  their  form  and  content  from  the  economic  prob- 
lems of  a  people,  or,  to  state  the  matter  more  generally,  from 
the  situations  of  every  kind  which  attract  their  attention; 
we  may  even  say  that  the  very  religious  values  have  thus  arisen\  j 
and  developed.     In  other  words,  the  religious  consciousness!! 
itself  is  organically  related  to  the  development  of  intermediate  \ 
adjustments  between  the  stimulus  to  activity  and  the  end  \ 
toward  which  it  is  directed.    To  the  question  of  how  these 
have  arisen  we  shall  now  turn  our  attention. 


*  John  Dewey,  "The  interpretation  of  savage  mind,"  The  Psychological 
Review,  Vol.  IX,  p.  221. 

'  The  Religion  of  the  Semites. 
'  Semitic  Origins. 

*  Miss  M.  Morris,  in  Journal  of  the  American  Oriental  Society,  Vols.  24, 
p.  394  and  26,  p.  165,  has  collected  many  interesting  illustrations  of  this  fact. 


i 


48  DEVELOPMENT  OF  RELIGION 

It  may  seem  that  it  is  almost  impossible  to  discover  any 
order  or  method  in  the  differentiation  of  simple  reactions  into 
the  complicated  forms  of  activity  characteristic  of  all  hu- 
man society,  whatever  the  stage  of  culture.  Perhaps  the  most 
general  cause  of  change  from  the  simple  to  the  complex  has 
been  the  necessity  of  adapting  means  to  ends.  If  we  take 
this  in  a  broad  sense,  it  will  cover  a  great  many  types  of  differ- 
entiation. However,  there  are  always  operative  other  methods 
of  differentiation  of  a  simpler  character,  which  are  also  capa- 
ble of  producing  important  psychical  results.^  Thus  it  is  pos- 
sible that  a  large  number  of  the  complicated  customs  of  both 
civilized  and  savage  (more  especially  of  the  latter),  have 
accumulated  entirely  unconsciously  and  may  be  said  to  be 
analogous  to  the  variations  which  appear  in  physical  organisms 
from  generation  to  generation.  Just  as  variations  of  this  kind 
are  preserved  through  physical  heredity,  in  like  manner  slight 
and  unconscious  changes  in  human  action  may  accumulate 
and  be  transmitted  by  imitation  and  social  heredity.  An  in- 
dividual or  a  group  of  individuals,  more  or  less  by  chance,  may 
do  something  in  a  different  or  partially  different  way,  and  it 
is  possible  that  this  variation  may  be  preserved  in  the  group 
without  any  very  definite  thought  about  it.  The  facts  revealed 
by  the  psychology  of  unconscious  suggestion  seem  to  make  this 
entirely  possible.  In  many  cases,  the  direct  reactions  of  the  life- 
process  have  been  centres  for  the  accumulation  of  the  merest 
chance  associations.  Thus,  a  purely  accidental  thing,  done 
during  a  hunt,  might  be  repeated  through  unconscious  sugges- 
tion. Moreover,  if  the  hunt  were  successful,  this  particular  act 
might  be  regarded  as  one  of  the  causes  of  the  success,  so  that 

^  Cf.  the  following  discussion  with  Sumner,  N.  G.,  Folkways^  1906,  pp.  6,  7. 
According  to  him,  customs  are  based  on  practical  efforts  to  satisfy  needs  and 
interests  combined  with  belief  in  'luck.*  On  the  concept  of  'luck,'  see  the 
chapter  entitled  "  The  Mysterious  Power,"  infra,  pp.  163,  164. 


THE  CONSCIOUSNESS  OF  VALUE  49 

its  recurrence  through  habit  would  be  reenforced  by  various 
emotional  states  and  by  the  conception  of  the  relation  of  means 
and  end.  Other  individuals,  another  tribe,  or  the  next  genera- 
tion, might  take  it  up  simply  as  the  way  a  particular  thing  should 
be  done.  This  is  perhaps  the  simplest  way  that  primitive  types 
of  reaction  could  become  complicated.  The  development  of 
memory,  of  the  capacity  to  imitate,  and  of  a  nervous  system 
liable  to  become  fixed  in  habitual  modes  of  reaction  would 
almost  inevitably  result  in  just  such  a  semi-mechanical  ac- 
cumulation of  customs  about  the  more  direct  activities  of  life. 
The  importance  of  this  type  of  variation  for  human  progress  is 
not  at  first  obvious,  and  yet  it  is  in  accord  with  the  course  of 
human  events  as  recorded  by  history.  Thus  Thomas  says: 
"It  is  a  notorious  fact  that  the  course  of  human  history  has 
been  largely  without  prevision  or  direction.  Things  have 
drifted  and  forces  have  arisen.  Under  these  conditions  an 
unusual  incident  —  the  emergence  of  a  great  mind,  or  a 
forcible  personality,  or  the  operation  of  influences  as  subtle 
as  those  which  determine  fashions  in  dress  —  may  establish 
social  habits  and  copies  which  will  give  a  distinct  char- 
acter to  the  modes  of  attention  and  the  mental  life  of  a 
group. "  ^ 

Some  of  the  customs  of  the  Malays  may  be  used  to  illustrate 
the  discussion  which  precedes  and  that  which  is  to  follow.  They 
are  the  remnants  of  primitive  Malay  life  and  modes  of  thought 
which  have  persisted  merely  as  customs  through  several  over- 
lying alien  religions.  We  shall  look  at  them,  not  as  examples 
of  religion  or  of  magic,  though  they  are  susceptible  of  exami- 
nation from  these  points  of  view,  but  simply  as  types  of  inter- 
mediate activities.  The  fishing,  hunting,  and  mining  taboos 
seem  to  be  good  illustrations  of  this  simplest  class.  For  in- 
stance, when  a  man  is  engaged  in  these  pursuits,  he  may  use 

*  Sex  and  Society,  pp.  287  f. 


50  DEVELOPMENT   OF   RELIGION 

only  certain  words,  or  he  must  abstain  from  the  use  of  other 
words.  Certain  articles,  such  as  umbrellas,  boots,  and  sarongs 
(Malay  coats),  must  not  be  worn  or  taken  to  the  fishing  stakes.* 
Similar  taboos  affect  the  mining  of  tin,  and  there  are  such 
additional  prohibitions  as  these:  raw  cotton  must  not  be 
brought  into  a  mine  in  any  shape,  black  coats  must  not 
be  worn ;  so  also  the  gourds  used  by  the  Malays  as  water  ves- 
sels, all  sorts  of  earthenware,  glass,  limes,  lemons,  and  the 
outer  husk  of  the  cocoanut,  are  prohibited  articles.^  Scores 
of  similar  taboos  and  restrictions,  affecting  almost  every  de- 
tail of  the  life  of  these  people,  are  mentioned  by  Skeat. 

While  it  would  be  presumptuous  to  class  them  all  dogmati- 
cally under  the  same  heading,  one  can  hardly  doubt  that, 
among  the  almost  inconceivably  large  number  of  such  regu- 
lations found  among  all  the  natural  races,  if  not  also  among 
ourselves,  many  must  have  arisen  without  any  prevision  and 
have  been  perpetuated  through  association.  Man  is  a  variable 
quantity  even  without  his  intellect,  and  it  is  thus  more  than 
probable  that  innumerable  variations  in  procedure  will  occur 
in  any  simple  activity,  and  that  many  of  these  will  be  preserved 
through  the  influence  of  habit.  In  the  cases  referred  to  it 
may  be  that  the  people  who  first  worked  the  mines  did  not 
use  or  know  of  the  articles  mentioned  above.  When  at  a 
later  time  another  group  of  people  tried  its  hand  at  mining, 
it  probably  imitated  in  every  detail  the  life  of  its  successful 
predecessors.  (Just  as  imitations  of  the  personal  habits  of 
the  successful  Japanese  were  popular  in  America  during  the 
war  with  Russia.)  Or,  it  may  be,  a  party  of  miners  would 
be  successful  when  it  chanced  not  to  have  these  articles. 
Such  a  coincidence  would  alone  be  sufficient  to  start  a  cus- 
tom of  the  sort  we  have  mentioned. 

*  Skeat,  Malay  Magic,  London  and  New  York,  1900,  p.  315. 
2  Ihid.y  p.  257. 


THE  CONSCIOUSNESS   OF  VALUE  51 

The  great  amount  of  detail  in  the  habits  which  thus  clus- 
ter about  a  simple  economic  activity  can  be  best  appreciated 
by  the  citing  of  one  case  in  some  detail.  The  wild  pigeon 
among  the  Malays  is  properly  snared  as  follows:^  First  a 
conical  hut  of  certain  dimensions  is  built  in  a  carefully  selected 
spot  in  the  jungle.  It  must  be  built  strong,  for  the  hunter  may 
be  visited  by  a  tiger.  "In  front  of  the  hut,  that  is  to  say, 
on  the  side  away  from  the  door,  if  you  want  to  proceed  in  the 
orthodox  way,  you  will  have  to  clear  a  small  rectangular  space, 
and  put  up  round  it  on  three  sides  a  low  railing  consisting 
of  a  single  bar  about  eighteen  inches  from  the  ground.  This 
is  to  rail  off  what  is  called  'King  Solomon's  Palace-yard,^ 
and  will  also  be  useful  from  a  practical  point  of  view,  as  it  will 
serve  as  a  perch  for  your  decoy. "  Next  the  active  influence  of 
evil  spirits  must  be  neutralized  by  a  rice  ceremony,  ..."  first 
in  the  centre  of  the  enclosed  space,  and  then  in  each  corner 
successively,  beating  each  of  the  forked  sticks  at  the  corners 
with  a  bunch  of  leaves.  The  decoy  tube  is  then  taken  and 
an  appropriate  charm  recited,  after  which  is  sounded  a  long- 
drawn  note  in  each  corner,  the  mouth  end  is  inserted  in  the  hut 
through  a  hole  in  the  thatch,  while  the  heavy  outer  end  is 
supported  upon  a  forked  upright  stick.  Then  follows  the 
placing  of  the  decoy  bird  and  the  snaring  of  the  wild  birds  as 
they  alight  in  the  enclosure." 

The  following  charms  are  used  (specimens) :  — 

"When  about  to  start  to  decoy  the  pigeons,  say:  — 

It  is  not  I  who  am  setting  out. 

It  is  'Toh  Bujang  Sibor  (the  solitary  scooper)  who  is  setting 
out. 

Then  sound  the  decoy  tube  thrice  loudly,  and  say:  — 


52  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

I  pray  that  they  may  come  in  procession,  come  in  succession, 
To  enter  into  this  bundle  of  ours." 

On  reaching  the  hut,  another  charm  may  be  repeated,  or 
one  may  "  take  the  (leaves  of)  a  branch  of  a  tree  as  high  as 
one's  head,  also  from  one  which  is  as  high  as  the  waist,  the 
same  from  one  as  high  as  the  knee,  and  the  same  from  a  tree 
as  high  as  the  ankle  joint.  These  are  to  be  made  into  a 
bunch  and  used  to  flick  the  outside  of  the  hut  while  saying 
these  lines :  — 

^  Dok  Ding  (stands  for  the)  'Do'ding  Pigeon, 
Which  makes  three  with  the  Madukara  Pigeon, 
The  twig  breaks,  the  twig  is  pressed  down. 
And  our  immemorial  customs  are  restored.'" 

There  are  other  charms  to  speak  when  scattering  the  rice, 
when  sprinkling  the  rice  paste,  when  sounding  the  call  in  the 
midst  of  the  enclosure,  when  about  to  enter  the  hut,  when  the 
hunter  has  entered,  but  before  he  has  seated  himself,  when 
he  is  about  to  sound  the  decoy  tube,  and  so  on,  ad  infinitum. 

Some  of  the  details  of  this  process  are  clearly  practical,  as 
that  the  hut  should  be  used  before  the  leaves  are  withered, 
since  it  is  of  course  less  suspicious  if  fresh.  So  with  the  decoy 
bird.  Some  of  the  arrangements  are  meant  to  be  practical,  but 
from  our  point  of  view  they  are  entirely  aside  from  any  such 
use;  for  example,  the  various  charms  used  are  thought  to 
deceive  the  birds  and  to  induce  them  to  enter  the  trap. 
Others  of  the  details,  for  example,  the  shape  of  the  hut  and 
the  specifications  for  the  enclosure  without,  may  be  simply 
the  perpetuation  of  the  chance  ways  in  which  the  pigeons 
were  first  hunted,  but  now  they  are  regarded  as  absolutely 
essential  to  success  in  the  hunt. 

The  mere  performance  of  these  endless  details  serves  to 


THE  CONSCIOUSNESS  OF  VALUE  53 

intensify  the  suspense,  which  naturally  precedes  the  attain- 
ment of  the  goal,  and  serves  to  render  the  goal  of  more  strik- 
ing importance.  Do  we  not  all  feel  that  that  which  we  have 
obtained  through  a  long  succession  of  preliminary  acts  is 
somehow  worth  more  than  what  comes  more  immediately 
and  with  less  effort  ?  We  hold,  then,  in  general,  that  on  the 
psychical  side  the  outcome  of  these  almost  mechanical  de- 
velopments of  simple  life-processes  would  be  an  appearance 
of  a  more  pronounced  valuation  of  them.  Even  if  this  were 
not  the  case,  the  presence  of  these  clustering  habits  would  fur- 
nish a  basis  for  a  very  definite  value-consciousness  in  case 
the  opportunity  to  satisfy  the  impulse  or  to  reach  the  goal 
were  temporarily  or  permanently  removed.  It  is  probable  that 
the  resulting  sense  of  the  worth  of  the  goal  would  be  in  direct 
proportion  to  the  number  of  habits  organized  about  its  at- 
tainment. 

Another  way  in  which  intermediate  activities  arise  is  through 
the  conscious  and  hence  definite  attempt  of  individuals  to  se- 
cure more  complete  satisfaction  of  impulses,  or  a  better  attain- 
ment of  some  purpose.  The  development  of  the  higher  mental 
processes  makes  it  possible  for  man  to  attempt  new  adjust- 
ments when  the  instinctive  responses  do  not  bring  their 
accustomed  satisfaction.  Problematic  situations  may  be 
reflected  upon  and  various  devices  brought  to  bear  for  the 
attainment  of  results  which,  for  the  time  being,  are  uncertain. 
In  other  cases,  the  aim  of  the  adjustments  will  be  to  make 
more  certain  the  satisfactions  which  experience  proves  may 
sometimes  fail  one.  This  capacity  to  reflect  and  to  adjust 
means  to  ends  is  of  course  the  basis  of  all  invention  and  prog- 
ress. It  is  to  be  noted,  however,  that  the  first  attempts  to  meet 
the  needs  of  a  practical  difficulty  are  necessarily  extremely 
crude.  It  is  more  than  likely  that  the  real  reason  for  the 
failure  of  an  act  to  attain  its  satisfaction  would  not  be  correctly 


54  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

estimated  by  the  primitive  mind ;  indeed,  the  modern  mind  by 
no  means  always  sees  such  things  correctly.  Hence  the  means 
selected  to  meet  the  difficulty  are  often,  in  our  eyes,  irrelevant 
to  the  matter  in  hand  and,  at  best,  somewhat  roundabout. 
But  whatever  their  value,  they  are,  nevertheless,  intermediate 
adjustments.  They  may  take  the  form  of  tricks,  of  attempts 
to  propitiate  spirits  such  as  prayers,  sacrifices,  and  all  sorts  of 
complicated  but  useless  ceremonials.  The  illustration  given 
above  of  the  snaring  of  the  wild  pigeon  contains  many  in- 
stances of  acts  which  have  originated  in  this  way.  As  it  is 
impossible  to  be  sure  that  any  particular  act  is  entirely  rep- 
resentative of  this  or  that  type  of  differentiation,  we  had  best 
rest  with  the  simple  hypothesis  that  in  various  ways  activity 
tends  inevitably  to  become  complex.  Further  illustrations 
will,  therefore,  be  deferred  for  the  present. 
A  We  have  shown  that  activity  may  become  complicated,  first, 
|by  chance  associations,  and  second,  by  efforts  to  adjust  means 
^to  ends.  There  is  still  a  third  way  which  is  also  dependent 
upon  association.  Thus,  if  a  desired  object  is  for  the  time 
being  unattainable,  the  very  fact  of  its  postponement  will  bring 
it  the  more  vividly  to  consciousness.  If,  then,  anything  is 
present,  in  some  degree  associated  with  the  end,  it  also  tends 
to  become  an  object  of  attention,  and  upon  it  the  pent-up 
impulse  to  act  may  find  a  vent.  Thus,  if  a  man  desires  to 
kill  an  enemy,  and  cannot  at  the  moment  find  opportunity, 
he  may  vent  himself  on  something  belonging  to  the  enemy, 
or  he  might  even  find  a  satisfaction  in  perpetrating  on  a  crude 
image  what  he  wishes  to  do  eventually  to  the  enemy  himself. 
It  may  be  said,  in  general,  that  when  the  satisfaction  is  in  any 
way  delayed,  the  inhibited  impulse  tends  to  find  expression 
in  many  acts  associated  with  the  final  act,  or  suggested  by 
it.  Such  types  of  reaction  appear  strikingly  in  sympathetic 
magic,  although  they  are  common  to  a  far  wider  circle  of 


:the  consciousness  of  value  55 

activities.  Such  subsidiary  acts,  while  not  causally  connected 
with  the  primary  object  of  attention,  serve  the  apparently 
important  purpose  of  suggesting  it,  keeping  it  in  mind,  and 
standing  for  it  emotionally.  Acts  thus  associated  with  an 
object  and  sharing  its  emotional  values  are  easily  re- 
garded as  having  some  actual  connection  with  it,  and  hence 
may  be  taken  as  a  part  of  the  means  of  attaining  that  object, 
or  even  as  a  substitute  for  it.  In  this  way  all  sorts  of  acts, 
imitative  of  the  reality,  originate  and  develop.  The  taking 
of  the  sacraments  and  baptism  in  the  Christian  churches  is  an 
excellent  illustration.  The  Australian  custom  of  seeking  to 
bring  injury  to  enemies  by  pointing  charmed  sticks  at  them 
is  doubtless  of  the  same  category.  The  enemy  is  not  attacked 
directly  J  but  in  this  reduced  and  imitative  way.  Such  a  method 
of  attack  is  devoid  of  the  danger  of  a  direct  encounter,  but 
has  more  of  its  emotional  values.  It  probably  originated  in 
a  rehearsal  of  the  combat,  when  for  any  reason  that  combat 
was  delayed,  and  since  it  was  found  to  have  the  same  or  greater 
emotional  results,  it  was  conceived  to  have  the  same  external 
efifects  as  the  actual  combat. 

The  rehearsal  of  a  prospective  fight  is  an  actual  fact  among 
primitive  peoples,^  and  the  cause  of  such  a  procedure  must, 
first  of  all,  be  due  to  the  tendency  of  the  pent-up  impulse 
to  find  expression  in  some  associated  or  similar  activity. 
The  association  in  thought  and  the  emotional  similarity  are 
all  that  are  required  to  lead  to  the  belief  that  they  are  genuinely 
connected  in  the  external  world.^ 

There  are  naturally  many  variations  of  this  type  of  action, 
but  in  every  case  they  seem  to  depend  for  their  significance 

^  Cf.  Spencer  and  Gillen,  Northern  Tribes  of  Central  Australia^  Chap. 
XVIII,  for  an  extensive  account  of  such  a  procedure. 

*  Cf.  the  foregoing  account  of  the  origin  of  customs  with  that  given  by 
Dewey  and  Tufts,  Ethics^  1908,  pp.  52  f. 


56  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

upon  associations  first  brought  to  consciousness  by  the  neces- 
sity of  deferring  response  to  the  original  stimulus.  The  follow- 
ing illustrations  will  serve  to  render  the  point  still  clearer.  On 
the  west  coast  of  Africa  the  negroes,  "in  passing  through  a 
country  where  leopards  and  lions  abound,  carefully  pro- 
vide themselves  with  the  claws,  teeth,  lips,  and  whiskers  of 
those  animals,  and  hang  them  around  their  necks  to  secure 
themselves  against  being  attacked."  ^  Here  the  anticipation  of 
the  conflict  is  manifestly  the  controlling  factor  in  the  deter- 
mination of  this  supplementary  act.  In  the  following  com- 
plicated fishing  ceremony  from  West  Africa,  we  may  discern 
various  types  of  intermediate  acts,  but  those  last  described 
are  certainly  predominant.  A  concoction  is  first  prepared,  the 
ingredients  of  which  have  been  collected  with  the  greatest  care. 
After  this  a  number  of  different  things,  all  of  which  involve 
much  emotional  stress,  are  to  be  done.  Thus,  ''while  the 
mess  is  boiling,  (you  must)  sit  by,  face  over  the  pot,  in  the 
steam  rising  from  it,  and  speak  into  the  pot, '  Let  me  catch  fish 
every  day !  every  day ! '  No  people  are  to  be  present  or  to  see 
any  of  these  proceedings.  Take  the  pot  off  the  fire,  not  with 
your  hands  but  by  your  feet,  and  set  it  on  the  ground. "  After 
the  fisherman  has  eaten,  he  calls  a  dog  to  finish  the  refuse. 
"As  the  dog  begins  to  eat,  strike  it  sharply,  and  as  the  animal 
runs  away  howling,  say,  '  So,  may  I  strike  the  fish ! '  Then 
kick  the  pot  over.  .  .  .  Leave  the  pot  lying  as  it  is  until 
night ;  then,  unseen,  take  it  into  the  village  street,  and  violently 
dash  it  to  pieces  on  the  ground,  saying,  'So  may  I  kill  fish  !^ 
It  is  expected  that  the  villagers  shall  not  hear  the  sound  of  the 
breaking  of  the  vessel,  for  it  must  be  done  only  when  they  are 
believed  to  be  asleep. "  ^    The  performance  of  these  some- 

*  Quoted  in  Nassau's  Fetichism  in  West  Africa.    New  York,  1904,  pp.  8$, 
84. 

*  Nassau,  op.  ciL,  pp.  187  f. 


THE  CONSCIOUSNESS   OF   VALUE  57 

what  difficult  things  in  entire  secrecy  inevitably  involves  the 
doer  in  an  emotional  strain  which  intensifies  his  appreciation 
of  the  final  act  of  fishing  itself.  Much  of  this  ceremony  seems 
to  reflect  dimly  a  rehearsal  of  the  conflict,  that  is,  it  is  a  series 
of  acts  which  arose  in  the  first  place  as  an  outlet  for  a  checked 
direct  activity.  The  result  was  a  series  of  emotional  states 
which  were  associated  with  the  ultimate  practical  act,  and 
came  to  stand  for  it  in  consciousness.  They  represent  to  the 
performer  the  significance,  or  the  value,  of  that  act. 

One  or  two  more  illustrations  from  the  Malays  may  yet 
be  given.  Deer-catching  is  one  of  the  Malay's  most  delightful 
pastimes.  When  the  deer  have  been  tracked  to  their  hiding- 
place,  **all  the  young  men  of  the  village  assemble,  and  the 
following  ceremony  is  performed  before  they  sally  out  on  the 
expedition.  Six  or  eight  coils  of  rattan  rope,  about  an  inch 
in  diameter,  are  placed  on  a  triangle  formed  with  three  rice- 
pounders,  and  the  oldest  in  the  company,  usually  an  experi- 
enced sportsman,  places  a  cocoanut  shell  filled  with  burning 
incense  in  the  centre,  and  taking  the  sprigs  of  three  [particular] 
bushes  he  walks  mysteriously  around  the  coils,  beating  them 
with  the  sprigs,  and  erewhile  muttering  some  gibberish.  .  .  . 
During  this  ceremony  the  youths  of  the  village  look  on  with 
becoming  gravity  and  admiration.  It  is  believed  that  the 
absence  of  this  ceremony  would  render  the  expedition  un- 
successful; the  deer  would  prove  too  strong  for  the  ropes, 
and  the  wood  demons  frustrate  their  sport  by  placing  insur- 
mountable obstacles  in  their  way."  ^  Here,  again,  the  re- 
hearsal of  the  combat  has  developed  into  a  ceremony,  a  series 
of  intermediate  acts,  which  serve  to  heighten  the  hunters'  con- 
sciousness of  the  values  in  the  sport.  There  are  present  the 
feelings  of  suspense,  the  exacting  preparations  for  the  cere- 
mony, the  subordination  of  the  young  men  to  an  older  one, 
^  Skeat,  op.  cit.,  p.  172. 


58  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

the  mysterious  and  unintelligible  performances,  —  all  of  which 
tend  to  make  the  deer-catch  a  matter  of  some  moment,  that 
is,  a  valuated  act. 

In  our  account  of  the  development  of  custom,  we  must  not 
omit  the  influence  of  the  play  impulse  as  manifested  both  in 
the  workings  of  idle  fancy  and  in  various  physical  movements. 
On  no  plane  of  culture,  whether  civilized  or  savage,  can  all 
acts  be  prompted  solely  by  serious  ends.  In  the  case  of  the 
majority  of  people  there  must  be  times  of  relaxation  when 
impulse  spontaneously  overflows,  sometimes  in  physical 
movements  and  sometimes  in  creations  of  the  fancy.  The 
universality  of  play  is  the  best  evidence  that  we  are  funda- 
mentally active  creatures,  the  best  evidence  that  our  ideas, 
purposes,  values,  appreciations  are  constructions  from  this 
exuberance  of  instinctive  and  impulsive  modes  of  behavior. 
The  play-impulse  accounts  for  much  of  the  complication  of 
primitive  custom,  and  it  also  contributes  largely  to  the  develop- 
ment and  perpetuation  of  many  customs  having  a  serious 
origin.  Initiation  rites,  marriage  customs,  dances,  festivals, 
and  religious  ceremonies  furnish  abundant  illustration  of 
this  fact.  Thus,  to  take  a  single  illustration,  dances 
at  the  time  of  the  full  moon  may  outwardly  have  some 
religious  or  magical  significance,  but,  in  their  beginnings,  they 
may  have  been  quite  natural  overflowings  of  animal  spirits 
in  mere  play.  Such  dancing,  among  the  Bushmen,  according 
to  Stow,*  is  clearly  play,  stimulated  by  the  almost  daylight 
brightness  of  the  warm  South  African  nights.  This  suggests 
that  ritualistic  dances  among  other  peoples  may  have  been 
originally  a  manifestation  of  mere  playfulness.  The  element 
of  play  in  the  religion  of  the  early  Hebrews  is  brought  out 
clearly  in  many  of  the  denunciations  of  the  prophets.  In  the 
case  of  primitive  religious  ceremonies,  it  is  naturally  impossible 

*  The  Native  Races  of  South  Africa,  pp.  iii  f. 


THE  CONSCIOUSNESS   OF  VALUE  59 

to  tell  just  what  has  originated  in  pure  sportiveness  and  what 
points  back  to  some  serious  purpose.  Without  doubt,  how- 
ever, playfulness  has  exerted  an  influence,  even  if  it  is  not  a 
determinable  quantity.  Many  peculiar  aspects  of  primitive 
custom,  which  have  puzzled  anthropologists,  and  to  which 
they  have  brought  far-fetched  interpretations,  can  no  doubt 
be  explained  in  this  way. 

But  the  chief  point  here  is  that  the  play  impulse  is  instru- 
mental both  in  the  origin  and  the  continuance  of  many  customs 
and  ceremonials.  In  this  impulse  we  may  therefore  find,  in 
part,  the  antecedents  of  the  general  valuating  consciousness. 

It  is  not  our  purpose  here  to  do  more  than  illustrate  the  way 
in  which  the  direct  activities  of  the  life-process  have  tended  to 
differentiate  about  centres  of  attention,  and  to  suggest  that 
this  development,  on  the  active  side,  seems  to  mediate  a  more 
pronounced  conscious  valuation  of  the  original  act  or  thing. 
These  preliminary  activities  of  necessity  come  more  vividly 
to  consciousness  than  do  the  simpler  reactions.  There  is  no 
need  for  a  conscious  process  as  long  as  the  response  accom- 
plishes its  purpose  without  friction.  But  when  there  is  fric- 
tion, there  is  also  reflection  over  the  resources  and  an  attempt 
to  estimate  their  worth  with  reference  to  the  desired  end.  By 
the  interruption  of  the  direct  act,  its  goal  is  realized  for  the  first 
time  as  of  vital  importance,  and  the  means  used  to  attain  it  gain 
a  corresponding  emotional  value.  In  so  far  as  they  are  recog- 
nized as  related  to  an  important  end,  they  receive  its  valua- 
tion. It  is  important  to  note  that  only  as  these  preliminary 
or  mediating  activities  arise  is  the  value  of  the  end  realized. 
They  serve  in  a  way  to  analyze  the  end,  to  bring  to  conscious- 
ness its  implications.  Hence  it  can  be  said  that  the  value 
of  the  end  is  first  completely  realized  when  it  is  analyzed  out 
into  a  set  of  preliminary  acts  through  which  it  can  be  ideally 
represented.     The  valuated  end  does  not,  then,  first  exist 


DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

reflect  its  worthfulness  upon  the  means.  The  means 
are  rather  vital  elements  in  the  very  production  of  the  value. 

It  will  be  seen  that  the  illustrations  given  are  of  acts  which 
would  hardly  be  called  religious.  They  are  merely  complica- 
tions of  the  simple  life-activities,  and  it  was  noted  that  they 
served  to  mediate  valuational  states  of  consciousness.  Reli- 
gious practices,  as  we  shall  see,  are  of  the  same  species  as  these 
here  discussed,  their  distinguishing  trait  being  that  they  pos- 
sess a  higher  development  of  the  valuational  accompaniment. 

Summarizing  the  discussion  up  to  this  point,  we  may  say 
that  the  consciousness  of  value  seems  to  be  closely  associated 
with,  if  not  conditioned  by,  the  development  of  active  processes. 
Among  these  are  included  all  complications  of  activity,  whether 
due  to  chance  variations,  accumulated  mechanically,  or  to 
conscious  adaptations  to  situations  of  stress  or  conflict. 
It  is  natural  that  these  latter  should  be  most  productive 
of  intermediate  types  of  action  because  of  the  great  demand 
they  make  upon  the  instinctive  and  impulsive  nature.  More- 
over, the  wide  variety  of  situations  of  conflict  and  struggle 
which  mankind  as  a  whole  has  had  to  face  has  served  to 
develop  the  valuational  consciousness  on  the  broadest  lines. 

Among  some  peoples  the  obtaining  of  food  is  nearly  always 
preceded  by  the  hunt,  which  is  a  prolific  source  of  value  atti- 
tudes. If  the  supply  of  food  is  quite  precarious  and  uncertain, 
as  with  the  Central  Australians  or  the  primitive  Semites,  on 
account  of  the  barrenness  of  the  countries,  the  conflicts  will 
not  always  be  with  animals,  but  with  adverse  natural  condi- 
tions, such  as  lack  of  water  and  vegetation.  Among  other 
races  the  food  problem  is  hardly  present,  as  in  the  case  of  the 
negroes  of  the  west  coast  of  Africa,  described  by  Ellis.  ^ 
Hence  among  them  we  find  the  objects  of  attention  and  con- 

^  The  Tshi-speaking  Peoples  of  the  Gold  Coast.  See  also  Mary  Kingsley, 
West  African  Studies,  p.  124. 


THE  CONSCIOUSNESS  OF  VALUE  6l 

flict  are  the  forces  of  nature,  disease,  dangerous  rivers,  lakes, 
marshes,  the  sea,  the  great  tropical  trees  from  which  dead 
branches  may  fall,  or  which  may  fall  themselves  without 
warning  upon  the  unwary  black  passing  beneath.  All  these 
are  serious  objects  of  attention  to  the  native,  as  is  proved 
by  his  attempts  to  adjust  himself  to  them.  His  gods  are 
personifications  of  the  values  these  situations  have  for  him. 
A  god  of  fertility  would  have  no  meaning  for  him,  because  he 
has  not  come  to  consciousness  of  the  significance  of  fertility. 
A  deep  pool  of  water,  however,  in  which  a  man  has  been 
drowned,  a  dark  ravine,  or  a  gloomy  recess  in  the  forest  are 
all  objects  to  him  of  respectful  attention,  because  in  connec- 
tion with  them  he  fijids  that  this  direct,  spontaneous  activity 
is  inhibited,  and  that  he  is  under  the  necessity  of  conducting 
himself  with  circumspection. 

The  accumulation  of  mediating  activities  about  striking 
places  and  objects  is  one  of  the  first  steps  in  the  development 
of  the  concept  of  sacred  places  and  sacred  objects.  The 
Hudson  Bay  Eskimo  salute  dangerous  rocks  or  capes  on 
passing  them.  In  this  act  we  have  a  simple  modification  of 
activity,  scarcely  religious,  and  yet  easily  capable  of  becoming 
such,  when  the  place  toward  which  it  is  directed  would  become 
a  sacred  locality.  The  sacred  places  of  the  Central  Austra- 
lians are  the  secret  repositories  of  their  Churinga,  or  sacred 
objects,  and  we  can  scarcely  doubt  that  their  awe  of  these 
places  is  enhanced  if  not  created  by  the  ceremonies  clustering 
about  them,  and  that  the  ceremonies  themselves  are  develop- 
ments, in  the  ways  suggested  above,  from  some  simple  activi- 
ties of  the  life-process. 

If  what  we  have  to  deal  with  were  mere  imconscious  habit, 
there  would  seem  to  be  small  chance  for  the  appearance  of  an 
attitude  of  consciousness  as  refined  as  the  sense  of  value. 
But  it  should  be  noted  that  habits  are  not  of  necessity  uncon- 


62  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

scious.  The  habits  of  adjustment  developed  by  acute  or 
problematic  situations  may  have  quite  definite  conscious 
accompaniments.  Even  if  consciousness  lapses,  the  physical 
adjustments  form  a  continuous  background  from  which  it  is 
possible  for  the  conscious  states  to  be  easily  reexcited.  It 
should  also  be  borne  in  mind  that  these  activities  furnish  an 
avenue  for  social  intercourse  and  social  expression  in  a  way 
that  less  habitual  activities  do  not.  In  this  way  they  be- 
come the  basis  of  many  emotional  values  which  have  little 
or  no  connection  with  the  original  object  of  the  acts.  In 
other  words,  the  mediating  activities  themselves  may  become 
the  objects  of  a  valuating  consciousness,  their  original  meaning 
being  either  lost  or  never  known.  Thus,  as  Nassau  tells  us, 
the  negroes  of  West  Africa  often  attend  the  tribal  ceremonies 
purely  for  the  sake  of  the  excitement,  having  no  knowledge 
whatever  of  the  meaning  of  the  performances.  So  also  with  the 
Mountain  Chant  of  the  Navaho,  the  ceremonies  of  which  are 
ostensibly  for  the  curing  of  the  diseased,  although  the  Indians 
really  meet  that  they  may  have  a  jolly  social  time  together. 
I  In  many  cases  the  mere  isolation  of  the  overt  act  serves 
to  enhance  its  emotional  accompaniment.  In  this  way  it 
may  occur  that  the  value  attitudes  developed  on  lower  planes 
of  culture  are  generalized  and  given  an  objective  significance 
in  accord  with  the  more  advanced  state  of  culture.  It  was 
thus  that  the  prophets  of  Israel  generalized  their  deeper  reli- 
gious conceptions  from  the  primitive  conceptions  of  worth 
inherited  from  the  early  Semitic  peoples. 

We  have  thus  far  been  concerned  simply  to  show  the  con- 
nection of  the  value-consciousness  with  the  overt  expressions 
of  the  life-process.  The  next  problem,  that  of  the  first  steps 
in  the  development  of  the  religious  attitude,  is  chiefly  that  of 
determining  the  sorts  of  situations  which  tend  to  intensify  the 
sense  of  worth  and  render  it  of  more  than  transient  duration. 


CHAPTER   IV 

THE  GENESIS   OF   THE   RELIGIOUS   ATTITUDE 

I      The  religious  consciousness,  as  has  been  said,  is  a  special 

I  development   of   valuational  attitudes.     The  problem   now 

before   us   is   that  of  determining  how  this   specialization 

has  been  accomplished.     It  is  the  problem  of  the  origin  of 

religion,  as  far  as  psychological  science  is  concerned. 

We  may  start  with  the  hypothesis  that  the  social  body 
has  been  at  least  an  important  factor  in  this  process.  There 
are  certainly  many  things  which  will  readily  come  to  mind  as 
favorable  to  such  a  preliminary  conception.  Many  of  our 
highest  valuations  are  distinctly  dependent  upon  a  social  con- 
text for  even  their  present  significance.  The  sentiments  of 
love  and  duty,  the  notion  of  sin  and  of  right,  have  no  mean- 
ing except  in  terms  of  either  an  actual  or  an  ideal  social 
order.  We  may  well  inquire,  then,  whether  these  higher 
valuations  of  conduct,  and  even  the  so-called  highest  re- 
ligious conceptions,  those  of  God,  freedom,  and  immortality, 
do  not  owe  their  existence  to  the  influence  of  the  social  group 
upon  the  simpler  values,  the  origin  of  which  has  been 
sketched  in  the  preceding  chapter. 

It  should  be  scarcely  necessary  to  remind  the  reader  at 
this  point  that  the  inquiry  here  proposed  does  not  in  the 
least  impugn  the  significance  of  the  religious  attitude.  We 
are  merely  seeking  to  determine  the  natural  history  of  cer- 
tain facts.  If  our  highest  values  have  developed  in  a  social 
atmosphere,  it  means  that  these  values  are  an  organic  part 
of  the  universe  of  which  human  society  is  also  a  constituent. 
If  the  intercourse  of  man  with  man  has,  under  favoring 

63 


64  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

conditions,  been  instrumental  in  creating  within  him  lofty 
conceptions  and  noble  purposes,  we  can  only  feel  a  deeper 
confidence  in  the  nature  of  things,  whatever  that  nature 
may  be.  It  is  the  purpose  of  this  study  to  seek  for  relation- 
ship where  disconnection  has  often,  hitherto,  been  assumed. 

It  is,  indeed,  well  recognized,  but  in  a  general  way,  that 
the  atmosphere  of  the  social  group  is  an  important  stimulus 
to  the  development  of  almost  every  human  characteristic. 
It  is  difficult  to  conceive  of  the  development  of  language 
and  of  art,  or  of  the  accumulation  and  organization  of 
knowledge  outside  of  a  social  environment.  It  is  to  the 
same  source  that  we  should  doubtless  look  for  the  develop- 
ment of  the  finer  emotional  attitudes.  What  do  we  not  owe 
to  one  another  in  the  development  of  our  sense  of  beauty,  of 
loveliness,  and  of  moral  greatness  ?  While  we  may  experience 
the  emotions  of  fear  or  of  anger  toward  the  forms  of  life  be- 
neath ourselves  and  even  toward  the  inanimate  world,  it  is 
significant  to  note  that  primitive  man,  —  if  we  may  judge 
from  the  natural  races  of  to-day,  —  when  he  experienced  these 
emotions,  often  conceived  of  them  as  directed  toward  conscious 
beings  like  himself.  The  sense  of  value  itself  is  so  thoroughly 
bound  up  with  social  activities  that  it  may  almost  be  called  a 
social  category. 

The  purpose  of  this  chapter  is  to  analyze  this  somewhat 
vague  conception  of  the  importance  of  social  intercourse  in 
the  formation  of  human  nature  in  the  hope  of  formulating  it 
more  definitely.  It  will  be  recalled  that  in  an  earlier  chap- 
ter (Chap.  II)  we  pointed  to  the  fact  that  mental  attitudes 
develop  in  intimate  connection  with  overt  processes,  that  the 
psychical  state  is  as  much  the  result  of  physical  activity  as  it 
is  the  cause  of  further  action.  As  was  previously  stated,  the 
mental  process  stands  for  a  crisis  of  some  kind  which  has 
arisen  in  the  overt  chain  of  events.     Whenever  it  is  con- 


THE   GENESIS   OF   THE   RELICxIOUS   ATTITUDE     65 

sidered  in  itself,  it  must  be  thought  of  as  an  abstraction 
from  this  objective  sequence.  Now  if  the  activities  most 
likely  to  give  rise  to  a  valuational  attitude  are  those  in 
which  many  may  share,  if  the  crises  are  crises  of  the  group 
rather  than  of  the  individual,  the  resulting  mental  attitudes 
would  certainly  be  social.  Tufts  has  advanced  the  theory 
that  the  aesthetic  consciousness  is  in  this  way  a  social  prod- 
uct, arising  out  of  such  group  activities  as  the  dance,  the 
festival,  and  other  social  performances  which  were  origi- 
nally the  expression  of  practical  attitudes  called  forth  by  the 
necessities  of  the  life-process.  In  other  words,  that  we  have 
in  these  activities  the  causes  and  not  the  results  of  certain 
states  of  consciousness.*  More  than  this,  it  is  seen  that  the 
acts  are  of  a  definitely  social  character,  so  that  the  aesthetic 
development  of  the  value-consciousness  is  the  product  of 
social  intercourse.  On  reflection  it  seems  quite  evident  that 
such  is  the  case.  It  is  certainly  true  that  the  attitude  of  appre- 
ciation follows  rather  than  precedes  the  act  to  which  it  refers, 
and  if  the  act  is  one  performed  by  a  social  group,  if  it  is,  in 
fact,  possible  only  through  social  cooperation,  as  in  the  case 
of  dance  or  festival,  the  aesthetic  consciousness  is  clearly 
conditioned  by  the  preexisting  social  body.  That  the  context 
of  activity  out  of  which  all  the  more  permanent  and  far- 
reaching  values  have  arisen  is  essentially  social,  and  there- 
fore that  religion,  as  an  aspect  of  the  value-consciousness, 
is  a  product  of  social  intercourse,  we  shall  now  try  to  show. 

*  "  Art  has  not  arisen  primarily  to  satisfy  an  already  existing  love  of  beauty. 
It  has  arisen  chiefly,  if  not  wholly,  from  other  springs,  and  has  itself  created 
the  sense  by  which  it  is  enjoyed."  "  The  dance  before  the  chase  or  battle,  the 
mimes  at  agriculture  festivals,  or  at  initiation  ceremonies,  which  seem  to  the 
uninstructed  onlooker  crude  forms  of  art,  are  to  the  mind  of  the  actors  en- 
tirely serious.  They  give  success  in  the  real  activities  which  follow  these 
symbolic  acts.  They  bring  the  rain  or  sunshine  or  returning  spring."  "  On 
the  genesis  of  the  aesthetic  categories,"  The  University  of  Chicago  De- 
cennial  Publications,  Vol.  Ill,  Part  2,  p.  5. 


66  DEVELOPMENT  OF  RELIGION 

I  The  general  notion  of  worth,  as  has  been  pointed  out, 
appears,  first  of  all,  when  the  appropriate  response  to  a  stimulus 
is  not  immediately  forthcoming,  and  the  individual  is  side- 
tracked into  a  lot  of  intermediate,  or  preliminary,  activities. 
The  presence  of  an  evaluating  attitude  means,  primarily,  that 
in  some  way  the  direct  outgo  of  activity  has  been  checked. 
In  the  case  of  primitive  man,  the  most  acutely  felt  inhibitions 
were  certainly  those  which  affected  the  group  as  a  whole. 
The  occasions  of  strain  which  were  permanent  enough  to 
become  fixed  in  mind  were  doubtless  those  of  food  and  defence, 
and  in  these  the  entire  group  would  be  concerned.  The  crises 
felt  by  the  individual  only  would  be,  in  most  cases,  subsidi- 
ary to  these  primary  necessities  in  which  all  were  interested. 
They  would  therefore  be  more  transient  and  less  able  to  afford 
a  basis  for  the  building  up  of  a  definite  sense  of  worth.  The 
desires  of  the  individual  vary ;  from  purely  physical  causes 
his  attitudes  toward  many  things  are  easily  subject  to  even 
hourly  changes.  If,  however,  of  the  values  of  which  he  is 
conscious  at  a  given  time,  some  are  shared  with  others,  to 
these  values  he  is  very  likely  to  come  back,  even  though  his 
appreciation  of  them  may  lapse  from  time  to  time.  Their 
presence  in  the  minds  of  others  is  a  constant  reminder  to  him 
of  their  existence  and  a  constant  stimulus  to  him  to  recover 
them  for  himself.  More  than  this,  whatever  has  had  more 
than  a  passing  interest  for  him  has  almost  always  turned  out 
to  be  of  concern  to  others  as  well  as  to  himself. 

So  completely  is  this  true,  that  the  primitive  man  can  hardly 
have  been  definitely  conscious  of  values  which  were  not  sup- 
ported and  shared  by  the  group  of  which  he  was  a  part.  A 
direct  result  of  such  a  condition  would  be  a  vague,  indefinite 
sense  of  his  own  personality.  The  group  itself  will  not  be 
analyzed,  but  will  be  conceived  in  the  gross,  as  the  universe  in 
which  he  moves  and  has  his  being,  as,  in  fact,  identical  with 


THE   GENESIS  OF  THE  RELIGIOUS  ATTITUDE     67 

himself.  This  indefinite  sense  of  personality  is  well  illustrated 
by  the  system  of  relationship  current  among  many  Australian 
tribes.  The  notion  of  wife,  mother,  father,  brother,  and 
sister  are  not  clearly  differentiated  from  a  rather  extended 
group  of  relatives.  Thus  the  term  brother  applies  not  only  to 
the  blood  brother,  but  also  to  all  males  born  from  a  certain  group 
of  men  and  women.  This  is  not  because  the  Australian  is 
in  doubt  as  to  his  blood  relationship,  but  because  his  own  sense 
of  personality  is  so  vague  that  he  conceives  vaguely  those  about 
him.  He  apparently  thinks  chiefly  of  groups  rather  than  of  indi- 
viduals. The  fact,  also,  that  among  many  primitive  types  at 
the  present  day  the  sense  of  personal  property  is  quite  limited 
is  an  indication  of  the  subordination  of  the  individual's  sense 
of  worth  to  that  of  the  group.  Thus,  among  the  Greenland 
Eskimo^  the  essential  and  general  utilities  of  food  and  shelter 
can  scarcely  be  said  to  be  limited  by  private  ownership, 
They  are  values  in  which  the  consciousness  of  the  whole 
has  so  identified  itself  that  they  are  social  through  and 
through.  There  is  no  chance  for  the  individual  to  feel  them 
as  his  own. 

The  point,  thus  far,  is  that  the  primitive  man's  greatest 
values,  his  highest  conceptions  of  worth,  are  apparently 
distinctly  social  matters,  and  hence  must  be  the  product  of 
social  activities,  particularly  those  which  cluster  about  the 
problems  and  crises  which  affect  the  group  as  a  whole. 

A  further  illustration  of  this  fact  we  take  from  W.  Robertson 
Smith. ^  The  primitive  Semites  thought  of  their  gods  as 
caring  only  for  the  tribe  and  not  for  the  individual.  The  sor- 
rows of  the  latter  were  out  of  place  in  the  religious  life  of  the 

*  Nansen,  Eskimo  Life;  cf.  Boas,  "The  central  Eskimo,"  Sixth  Annual 
Report  of  the  Bureau  of  Ethnology. 

2  The  Religion  of  the  Semites,  pp.  244  ff.  Cf .  also  Mockler-Ferryman, 
British  Nigeria,  p.  230,  "The  individual  is  sunk  in  the  family,  village,  or 
tribe ;  and  among  most  tribes  the  land  is  held  by  families  in  common." 


68  DEVELOPMENT   OF   RELIGION 

many.  Individual  grievances  and  wants  could  not  expect 
attention  of  the  deity.  Under  such  a  conception,  it  may  be 
taken  as  a  general  rule  that  whatever  is  of  permanent  value 
will  inevitably  be  associated  with  tribal  life  and  tribal  problems. 
Individual  concerns,  having  no  recognition  from  others,  would 
be  forgotten  as  the  mood  of  their  possessor  shifted.  On  the 
other  hand,  that  reenforcement  which  one's  sense  of  worth 
gains  by  the  agreement  of  other  minds  is  certainly  of  the 
greatest  importance.  The  fact  that  some  values  are  so  re- 
enforced  and  others  not  so  augmented  would  serve  to  scale 
them  off  with  very  little  reference  to  their  intrinsic  appeal  to 
the  individual  as  such.  We  may  safely  conclude,  then,  that 
the  primitive  man  could  scarcely  think  of  a  permanent  and 
abiding  value  except  in  terms  of  his  group.  The  group 
endures  while  he  changes.  It  is  the  symbol  to  him  of  per- 
manence ;  it  is  the  universe  in  which  he  moves,  and  with  which 
he  is  familiar. 

That  the  social  organization  is  practically  the  universe,  the 
ne  plus  ultra  of  the  primitive  man's  life,  is  a  most  important 
point  for  the  development  of  religious  values  out  of  those  of 
less  degree.  As  we  shall  try  to  show,  the  social  body  not  only 
is  an  agent  in  enhancing  and  rendering  permanent  the  simple 
values  brought  to  consciousness  by  the  growth  of  intermediate 
activities,  it  also  raises  them  to  the  highest  power.  Psycho- 
logically, the  values  of  the  group  are  not  only  higher  than 
those  of  the  individual,  they  are  genuinely  ultimate  and 
universal.  This  is  our  argument  in  a  nutshell,  and  we  can  do 
no  more  in  the  pages  which  follow  than  illustrate  it  a  little 
further. 

That  the  tribe  is  more  or  less  the  primitive  man's  universe 
is  illustrated  by  his  tendency  to  incorporate  within  it  all  that 
is  friendly  and  important  to  his  own  and  his  fellows'  welfare. 
The  ties  which  bind  together  the  group  are  those  of  kinship. 


THE   GENESIS   OF   THE  RELIGIOUS  ATTITUDE     69 

In  a  group  of  kin  are  learned  the  first  notions  of  friendship 
and  cooperation.  It  would  thus  be  difficult  for  a  savage  to 
conceive  of  anything  which  appeared  to  be  friendly  to  him  as 
otherwise  than  in  some  manner  of  his  kindred.  Thus  animals 
and  plants  which  are  found  to  be  of  importance  to  the  group 
are  included  within  it,  and  as  such  belong  to  its  kinship. 
There  are  no  doubt  some  groups  in  which  the  notion  of 
relationship  is  not  prominent,  and  to  them  the  points  of  this 
paragraph  would  hardly  apply.  We  merely  wish  to  empha- 
size at  this  point  that  where  values  are  conceived  in  terms 
of  kinship  they  are  social  values. 

The  blood  bond  has,  however,  been  so  universally  recognized 
that  it  may  well  be  taken  as  a  causal  agency  of  the  greatest 
importance  in  the  development  of  the  value-consciousness. 
Through  its  medium  the  social  body  has  produced  many  of 
our  ethical  and  religious  conceptions.  We  need  only  instance 
the  Christian  conceptions  of  the  fatherhood  of  God  and  the 
brotherhood  of  man ;  and  also  that  well-nigh  all  the  essential 
Christian  doctrines  bear  in  some  form  the  stamp  of  a  social 
structure  in  which  the  appeal  to  the  motive  of  kindred  was  of 
the  strongest  and  of  the  most  convincing  character.  Note^ 
for  example,  also,  the  teaching  of  Jesus,  which  starts  with  the 
conception  of  neighborliness,  brotherly  love,  and  the  like. 

In  the  social  group,  in  which  the  consciousness  of  kindred  is 
strong,  the  acts  in  which  kindred  participate  become  them- 
selves of  importance,  and  in  fact  serve  to  bring  out  more 
clearly  the  values  implicit  in  kinship  itself.  Thus,  with  refer- 
ence to  the  ancient  Semitic  peoples,  W.  "Robert<;nn  Smith  .qayg^:^ 
"The  act  of  eating  and  drinking  together  is  the  solemn  and 
stated  expression  of  the  fact  that  all  those  who  share  the  meal 
are  brethren  and  ...  all  the  duties  of  friendship  and  brother- 
hood are  acknowledged  in  their  common  act."     Probably 

^  The  Religion  of  the  Semites,  p.  247. 


70  DEVELOPMENT   OF   RELIGION 

no  other  social  act  has  been  more  productive  of  the  higher 
conceptions  of  worth. 

The  point  is,  then,  that  whatever  development  the  valua- 
tional  attitude  undergoes,  it  will  probably  be  mediated  by  and 
stated  in  terms  of  the  social  atmosphere  in  which  it  originates. 
'jThe  attitude  is  the  reflex  in  consciousness  of  certain  complex- 
iities  in  social  activity.  The  particular  function  of  the  social 
'element  is,  as  we  have  pointed  out,  in  giving  stability  and 
depth  to  the  values  brought  to  consciousness  through  the  rise 
of  intermediate  activities.  If  this  is  true,  the  form  of  social 
structure  will  have  much  influence  upon  the  character  of  the 
conceptions  of  worth  which  arise  within  it.  Thus,  a  loose 
social  structure  will  be  productive  of  vague,  uncertain  values. 
This  appears  to  be  the  case  with  some  of  the  West  African 
tribes  in  which  fetichism  prevails.  Nassau  holds  that  all 
the  spirits  in  which  they  believe  are  ultimately  of  the  dead, 
although  often  associated  with  some  novel  feature  of  the 
physical  environment.  Whether  this  connection  with  ances- 
tors is  genuine  or  not  is  here  immaterial.  Inasmuch  as  Ellis, 
in  writing  of  the  negroes  of  the  Slave  and  Gold  coasts,^  points 
out  the  same  association  of  spirits  with  natural  objects  and 
phenomena,  and  says,  moreover,  that  he  is  firmly  convinced 
that  in  the  large  majority  of  cases  there  is  no  connection  to  be 
traced  with  the  dead,  we  may  hold  it  as  a  possibility  that, 
in  the  case  of  the  negroes  known  to  Nassau,  the  association 
of  the  spirit  with  the  natural  object  is  more  primitive  than 
its  association  with  the  dead.^    But,  whatever  the  origin  of 

*  Vide  The  Tshi-,  Ewe-,  and  Yoruba-speaking  Peoples  of  the  Gold  and 
Slave  Coasts. 

*  It  is  worthy  of  note  that  very  frequently  people  of  ability  in  some  lines, 
but  with  no  specific  training  in  ethnological  subjects,  when  attempting  to 
describe  a  religious  system  with  which  they  have  come  in  direct  contact, 
take  for  granted  the  dictum  that  all  primitive  religions  are  based  on  ancestor- 
worship.    Witness  Lafcadio  Hearn  and  the  religions  of  Japan.    In  any 


THE   GENESIS   OF  THE   RELIGIOUS  ATTITUDE     71 

the  spirits,  they  seem,  among  these  African  tribes,  to  have 
no  well-defined  characteristics  or  powers.  "The  powers 
and  functions  of  the  several  classes  of  spirits  do  not  seem 
to  be  distinctly  defined.  Certainly  they  do  not  confine  them- 
selves either  to  their  recognized  locality  or  to  the  usually 
understood  function  pertaining  to  their  class.  Their  powers 
and  functions  shade  into  each  other.  .  .  .  They  are  limited 
as  to  the  nature  of  their  powers;  no  spirit  can  do  all  things. 
A  spirit's  efficiency  runs  only  on  a  certain  line  or  lines. "  ^ 

As  an  explanation  for  this  state  of  affairs,  we  would  refer 
to  the  character  of  the  social  body.  As  far  as  can  be 
gathered  from  Nassau's  account,  there  is  nothing  fixed  and 
definite  about  it,  as,  for  example,  is  the  case  with  the  Central 
Australians.  There  are  few  definite  marriage  regulations, 
no  set  of  customs  relating  to  the  various  periods  of  life,  such 
as  initiation  ceremonies,  in  which  all  join  with  a  definite 
purpose.  There  is  no  exact  system  of  relationship,  no  regular 
subordination  of  the  various  groups  to  a  ruling  body  or  chief, 
nor  any  other  than  a  sporadic  priesthood.  In  fact,  the  lack 
of  a  definite  body  of  regulative  customs  is  proof  of  a  low  degree 
of  social  organization.  The  food  problem,  which  is  without 
doubt  the  most  potent  cause  of  social  differentiation,  hardly 
exists  for  these  people.  Their  few  secret  societies  and  their 
ceremonies,  such  as  the  one  preliminary  to  fishing,  to  which 
reference  has  already  been  made,  are  always  matters  of  con- 
cern for  limited  groups  only,  and  for  individuals.  They 
afford  no  opportunity  for  the  crystallization  of  any  permanent 
corporate  consciousness.  It  is  not  strange  that  the  values  of 
such  a  people  are  chaotic  and  changing.     What  little  general 

case,  a  sweeping  use  of  the  principle  opens  one  to  some  little  suspicion.     Cf . 
also  Miss  Kingsley,  West  African  Studies,  pp.  131  f.,  who  holds  that  reverence 
of  ancestors  is  purely  incidental  in  West  Africa. 
*  Nassau,  op.  cit.,  p.  70. 


72  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

religion  has  been  developed  has  been  only  imperfectly  con- 
ceived by  the  people.  Nassau  tells  us'  ''the  views  of  the 
great  masses  of  the  people  on  these  subjects  (public  religious 
ceremonies)  are  exceedingly  vague  and  indefinite.  They 
attend  these  ceremonies  on  account  of  the  parade  and  excite- 
ment that  usually  accompany  them,  but  they  have  no  knowl- 
ledge  of  their  origin,  their  true  nature,  or  their  results."  In 
other  words,  the  social  body  is  not  definite  enough  to  pro- 
duce a  clear-cut  religious  attitude,  but,  such  as  it  is,  it  mediates 
a  value  attitude  of  a  lower  grade,  namely,  that  which  comes 
from  mere  mingling  together  in  the  performance  of  a  ceremony. 
It  is  possible,  of  course,  that  such  a  ceremony  points  to  a 
time  when  the  social  consciousness  was  more  stable  and 
definite;  if  such  was  the  case,  it  is  necessary  to  account  for 
the  present  condition  through  some  sort  of  degeneration. 
On  the  other  hand,  if  it  were  a  comparatively  simple  ceremony 
closely  associated  with,  or  expressing,  some  practical  interest, 
it  would  be  through  just  such  social  excitement  in  the  per- 
formance that  the  sense  of  ultimate  and  profound  worth 
would  develop. 

Among  the  Eskimo  of  Greenland  may  be  found  very  definite 
conceptions  of  value  in  lines  closely  connected  with  their  life- 
activities,  but  beyond  these  everything  is  vaguely  conceived. 
Thus  their  idea  of  the  duties  of  hospitality  is  clear,  as  also 
that  of  the  private  ownership  of  certain  kinds  of  property  and 
the  possession  in  common  of  other  kinds  of  property,  partic- 
ularly of  food  supplies.  And  the  same  holds  true  with  what- 
ever else  is  connected  intimately  with  their  somewhat  insistent 
problems  of  existence.  When,  however,  any  activity  or  con- 
ception loses  its  close  connection  with  these  objects  of  vivid 
attention,  it  loses  definiteness.  "  There  are  many  legends  and 
much  superstition,  but  it  all  lacks  clear  and  definite  form; 

^  Op.  cit.,  p.  74,  quoted  from  Wilson's  West  Africa. 


THE   GENESIS  OF  THE   RELIGIOUS  ATTITUDE     73 

conceptions  of  the  supernatural  vary  from  individual  to 
individual,  and  they  produce,  as  a  whole,  the  impression  of  a 
religion  in  process  of  formation,  a  mass  of  incoherent  and 
fantastic  notions  which  have  not  yet  crystallized  into  a 
definite  view  of  the  world."  *  This  is  no  doubt  an  example 
of  a  half-developed  religion  which  cannot,  under  present 
conditions,  integrate  any  further.  Matters  connected  with 
food,  shelter,  and  clothing  are,  of  necessity,  so  insistently 
present  to  attention  that  it  is  impossible  for  any  large 
number  of  subsidiary,  and  only  indirectly  useful,  activities 
to  accumulate.  Most  of  the  things  done  must  produce 
definite  and  tangible  results.  Hence  personal  skill  in  the 
handling  of  kaiaks  and  weapons  has  developed  to  a  very  high 
degree,  and  there  are  relatively  few  of  the  preliminary  cere- 
monies found  among  races  whose  food  conditions  are  less 
strenuous.  So  obviously  does  skill  determine  the  success  of 
an  expedition  or  hunt  that  there  has  been  small  opportunity  for 
any  theories  of  the  assistance  of  spirits  or  unseen  agencies  to 
grow  up  and  take  possession  of  their  minds,  as,  for  example, 
has  been  the  case  with  the  Malays.  They  do  have  some 
ideas  of  spirit  help  and  spirit  opposition,  but,  from  the  accounts 
one  can  procure  of  them,  these  ideas  are  not  the  centralizing 
ones  which  they  are  found  to  be  in  other  quarters  of  the  globe. 
The  negroes  of  the  Slave  coast,  described  by  Ellis,  furnish 
further  evidence  of  the  effect  of  defective  social  structure  upon 
the  notion  of  value.  Passing  along  the  Slave  and  the  Gold 
coasts,  according  to  this  author,^  one  finds  an  increasing 
definiteness  of  social  organization.  The  Tshi-speaking  people 
of  the  Slave  coast  have  no  definite  central  organization.  The 
topography  of  the  country  has  caused  the  natives  to  settle  in 

^  Nansen,  Eskimo  Life,  p.  224. 

'  Vide  the  volumes  on  the  Tshi-,  Ewe-,  and  Yoruba-speaking  peoples  re- 
ferred to  on  a  preceding  page. 


74  DEVELOPMENT  OF  RELIGION 

little  groups,  families,  and  town  companies,  all  more  or  less 
isolated.  There  are,  among  them,  vaguely  recognized  general 
deities,  but  the  local  spirits  are  by  far  more  important.  These 
are,  however,  of  the  most  fluctuating  character.  Every  nat- 
ural feature  that  has  attracted  attention  has  its  spirit,  and 
some  of  these  are  capable  of  being  transferred  to  fetich  objects 
which  are  reverenced  or  discarded  almost  at  the  whim  of 
their  possessors.  Nothing  has  a  definite  and  fixed  value 
which  under  all  circumstances  the  individual  is  bound  to 
respect.  This  is  evidently  because  there  is  no  definitely 
evolved  tribal  consciousness  which  reenforces  and  sustains 
the  transient  valuations  of  the  single  individual. 

Passing  along  the  coast  to  the  Ewe-  and  Yoruba-speaking 
peoples,  one  finds  an  increasingly  definite  and  permanent 
social  organization  and  a  corresponding  decrease  in  the 
importance  of  the  vague  local  spirits,  and  an  increased  im- 
portance attributed  to  the  general  deities,  who  with  them 
have  definite,  well-recognized,  and  permanent  characteristics. 
It  is  true  we  should  not  hastily  conclude  that  the  indefinite 
social  organization  is  the  cause  of  the  indefinite  values  simply 
because  the  two  are  found  to  be  coexistent.  The  question 
might  be  raised  as  to  whether  both  could  not  be  coordinate 
results  of  some  temperamental  trait  in  certain  peoples.  This, 
of  course,  would  not  be  an  explanation,  but  merely  a  shift  of 
the  problem.  Temperament  is  an  effect  rather  than  a  cause, 
and  it  is  undoubtedly  to  be  traced  to  various  objective  con- 
ditions imder  which  the  life-process  of  divers  groups  has  had 
to  work  itself  out.  It  is  in  some  subtle  combination  of  these 
objective  conditions  that  we  are  to  find  the  ultimate  basis  of 
different  types  of  social  organization.  As  we  have  seen  in 
the  case  of  the  Eskimo,  the  food  conditions  may  be  pre- 
eminent factors ;  or  topographical  conditions,  as  in  the  case 
of  the  negroes  mentioned  above,  may  be  chief  factors.    These 


THE   GENESIS   OF  THE  RELIGIOUS  ATTITUDE     75 

objective  conditions,  whatever  they  are,  determine  both  the 
character  of  the  social  group  and  the  kinds  of  values  which  it 
possesses.  Our  point,  then,  is  that  the  development  of  these 
values  is  closely  dependent  upon  the  social  atmosphere. 

It  is  interesting  to  compare  the  conceptions  of  value  cur- 
rent among  these  loosely  organized  African  tribes  with  those 
of  the  lower  but  more  definitely  organized  Australians.  The 
Australian  system  of  relationship  and  the  regulations  of  mar- 
riage involve  an  elaborate  organization  of  the  tribes.  This 
organization  is  permanent;  the  details  of  it  have  fixed 
names,  and  are  connected  in  various  ways  with  a  totemistic 
system.  The  result  is  a  vast  accumulation  of  worths,  or 
values,  both  built  up  and  sustained  by  the  social  body. 
Their  initiation  ceremonies  are  far  more  elaborate  and  appar- 
ently of  far  more  significance  to  them  than  is  the  case  with 
those  of  the  negroes.  There  can  be  no  question  but  that  the 
union  of  the  entire  group  in  the  performance  of  these  cere- 
monies makes  them  of  great  import  to  the  old  and  middle- 
aged  men,  not  to  speak  of  the  awe  they  inspire  in  the  novitiates 
and  in  the  women.  The  same  may  be  said  of  the  ceremonies, 
the  Intichiumay  designed  to  increase  the  supply  of  the  totem 
animal  or  plant.  Primitive  notions  of  sacredness  appear  in 
the  secrecy  observed  regarding  certain  of  the  rites,  the  names 
bestowed  on  the  boys  at  initiation,  and  the  traditions  of  the 
totems  which  are  then  for  the  first  time  told  to  them.  "It  is 
by  means  of  the  performances  .  .  .  that  the  traditions 
dealing  with  this  subject,  which  is  of  the  greatest  importance 
in  the  eyes  of  the  natives,  are  firmly  impressed  upon  the  mind 
of  the  novice,  to  whom  everything  he  sees  and  hears  is  new 
and  surrounded  with  an  air  of  mystery. "  ^ 

In  the  initiation  ceremonies  the  doings  of  their  half-hu- 
man ancestors  are  dramatically  represented,  and  the  totemic 
*  Spencer  and  Gillen,  The  Native  Tribes  of  Central  Australia,  p.  229. 


76  DEVELOPMENT  OF  RELIGION 

group  concerned  is  thus  kept  keenly  alive  to  their  peculiar 
theory  of  reincarnation.*  We  wish  to  suggest  here  the  possi- 
bility that  the  very  theory  itself  may  owe  its  existence  to  the 
dramatic  rehearsal  of  the  Alcheringa  (ancestral)  doings.  If 
such  is  the  case,  it  is  an  interesting  illustration  of  our  theory  of 
the  development  of  emotional  values.  Is  it  not  more  than 
likely  that  ceremonies  directly  imitative  of  animals,  as  these 
are  in  many  cases,  should  in  the  savage  mind  produce  in 
time  the  belief  that  the  performer  was  the  reincarnation  of  the 
spirit  of  the  being  represented  ?  The  fact  that  in  all  the  tribes, 
with  the  exception  of  certain  ones  in  the  interior,  the  Arunta 
and  the  Ilpirra,  these  ceremonies  avowedly  and  simply  repre- 
sent the  actions  of  certain  totemic  animals,  points,  as  it  seems 
to  us,  to  a  time  when  these  dramatic  rehearsals,  along  with 
the  knocking  out  of  teeth,  and  circumcision,  were  initiation 
ceremonies,  and  that  among  the  central  tribes  the  particular 
meaning  above  referred  to  was  developed.  There  are  many 
ways  in  which  primitive  man  might  be  led  to  imitate  the 
actions  of  familiar  animals.  Depending  upon  some  of  them 
for  food,  and  having  to  be  on  his  guard  against  others,  he 
is  of  necessity  quite  acutely  conscious  of  them  and  their 
habits.  Their  swiftness,  their  cunning,  and  their  strength 
cannot  fail  to  act  upon  him  as  forceful  suggestions.  He 
might  imitate  them  to  gain  their  powers,  to  get  control  over 
them  before  the  hunt,  or,  as  a  sort  of  sport,  he  might 
rehearse  afterwards  the  conflict  of  the  chase  and  enjoy 
again  its  emotional  thrills.  The  result  of  such  imitative 
performances  would  be  relatively  evanescent  if  they  were 
largely  matters  of  individual  caprice.  But  when  groups  of 
individuals  unite  in  them,  they  inevitably  become  social 
habits,  and  under  these  circumstances  new  meanings  can 
develop  almost  ad  infinitum.  Thus  a  custom  is  almost  sure 
*  Spencer  and  Gillen,  The  Native  Tribes  of  Central  Austr(Uia,  p.  228. 


THE   GENESIS   OF   THE   RELIGIOUS   ATTITUDE     77 

to  persist,  although  the  occasion  for  it  has  ceased  to  exist. 
Along  with  the  habit,  or  custom,  remain  its  psychical  effects, 
and  these  may  be  reinterpreted  in  any  way  the  savage  pleases. 
In  time,  there  would  develop  out  of  these  simple  mediating  acts 
elaborate  ceremonials,  having  profound  values  in  initiations, 
and  as  the  most  complex  and  remote  value  of  all,  a  theory 
regarding  the  origin  of  the  tribe  and  the  doings  of  its  ancestors. 
These  effects,  let  it  be  noted,  are  all  absolutely  dependent 
upon  the  existence  of  a  social  atmosphere  which  gives  con- 
tinuity to  the  habit,  and  stimulates  it  at  the  proper  time. 
The  degree  to  which  the  consciousness  of  value  has  developed 
through  these  various  practices  is  evident  from  the  fact  that 
they  are  performed  with  the  greatest  circumspection  and  with 
the  highest  degree  of  solemnity. 

The  Central  Australians  have  a  well-developed  conception 
of  sacred  places  in  their  Ertnatalunga,  or  secret  repositories 
of  sacred  objects,  the  Churinga.  Their  conception  is  quite 
different  from  the  African's  notion  of  places  inhabited  by 
spirits.  The  exact  location  of  these  sacred  storehouses  is 
carefully  concealed  from  the  women  and  from  other  groups. 
They  are  the  resting-places  of  the  most  sacred  possessions  of 
a  group.  Now  both  these  collections  of  sacred  objects  and 
their  permanent  hiding-places  would  be  impossible  of  devel- 
opment except  under  the  influence  of  a  well-organized  and  fairly 
permanent  social  body.  The  sacredness  of  the  Ertnatalunga  is 
further  enhanced  by  the  fact  that  a  man  must  prove  that  he 
is  worthy  by  showing  his  self-control  and  dignity  before  these 
sacred  places  are  revealed  to  him.  If  he  is  frivolous  and 
given  to  chattering,  like  the  women,  he  may  never  be  permitted 
to  see  their  location.  The  importance  of  the  social  body  in 
creating  and  sustaining  such  an  attitude  is  perfectly  obvious. 

Th^Churingamdcyhe  coi^pared  with  the  fetich  objects  of  the 
negroes  described  by  Ellis,  Nassau,  and  Miss  Kingsley.  These, 


78  DEVELOPMENT   OF   RELIGION 

in  most  cases,  have  little  permanent  value,  such  as  there  is 
depending  almost  entirely  upon  the  whim  of  the  owner.  The 
fetich  is  the  conceived  abode  of  a  spirit,  easily  secured  and  as 
lightly  cast  aside,  if  the  spirit  is  suspected  of  being  inefficient 
or  of  having  left  it.  The  Churinga  are  not  exactly  fetiches, 
although  they  are  associated  in  some  way  with  the  spirit 
individuals  of  the  group.  The  importance  of  the  group  in 
determining  their  character  is  clear.  They  have  a  permanent 
and  hence  a  greater  value  than  do  the  fetiches.  The  spirits 
associated  with  them,  instead  of  representing  individual 
caprice,  stand  for  the  permanent  social  group.  They  are 
guarded  by  the  old  men  as  the  most  sacred  possession  of  the 
tribe;  the  loss  of  them  would  be  the  most  serious  evil  which 
could  befall  it.  They  are  sometimes  loaned  with  the  greatest 
ceremony  to  neighboring  tribes.  The  entire  system  of  beliefs 
regarding  them  would  be  almost  inconceivable  outside  of  a 
strongly  organized  social  body,  which  would  in  the  first  place 
create  the  sense  of  their  worth  in  the  novice  and  reenforce 
it  and  sustain  it  when  once  created. 

Creation  myths  are  symbols  of  a  certain  type  of  value 
which  can  appear  only  among  well-developed  social  groups. 
With  most,  if  not  all,  primitive  peoples  such  myths  deal  with  the 
origin  of  the  tribes  possessing  them  rather  than  with  the  actual 
\   beginnings  of  the  material  universe.    The  creation  myth  is  an 
•  objective  expression  or  projection  of  the  group's  sense  of  self- 
\  hood,  or  individuality.    They  express  the  conceived  relation  of 
'  the  tribe  to  the  world  in  which  it  finds  itself.   Their  definiteness 
and  organization  may  be  taken  as  an  index  of  the  group's 
corporate  consciousness.     Other  things  being  equal,  the  pos- 
session of  a  well-developed  creation  myth  would  point  to  the 
presence  within  the  group  of  many  well-worked-out  conceptions 
of  value.    The  Eskimo,  who,  as  we  have  seen,  have  a  simple 
social  organization,  and  whose  conditions  of  life  have  made 


THE   GENESIS   OF   THE   RELIGIOUS   ATTITUDE     79 

the  food  problem  the  most  insistent  object  of  attention,  have 
only  a  few  scattering  and  unimportant  myths  of  their  origin. 
Their  stories  deal  almost  entirely  with  conditions  as  they  are  at 
present ;  they  are  reflections,  in  other  words,  of  their  dominant 
objects  of  attention.  The  Indians  of  the  western  plateaus 
of  North  America  have  also  no  creation  myths,  but  only  a 
great  mass  of  animal  stories  of  little  or  no  organization, 
corresponding  exactly  with  their  shifting,  uncertain  type  of 
life.  On  the  other  hand,  the  elaborately  organized  clans  of 
the  North  Pacific  coast  and  the  Pueblos  of  the  Southwest  have 
correspondingly  complicated  myths  of  their  origin  and  of  the 
fashioning  of  the  world  into  a  habitation  suited  to  their  needs. 
The  highly  developed  Iroquois  tribes  also  had  an  elaborate 
creation  myth.^ 

Turning  to  the  West  Africans,  we  find  they  have  no  creation 
myths  as  far  as  we  can  learn  from  the  accounts  of  their  observ- 
ers, while  the  natives  of  central  Australia  have  an  extremely 
well-developed  one.  The  creation  myth  may  be  regarded  as 
an  organized  statement  of  the  ultimate  relationship  of  the 
group  to  the  material,  animal,  and  vegetable  world  by  which  it 
is  surrounded.  While  not  in  itself  religious,  the  possession  of 
such  a  myth  by  a  people  is  an  indication  of  the  development 
of  a  type  of  consciousness  which  can  retain  quite  deep  and 
insistent  conceptions  of  value.  There  is  no  doubt  but  that 
there  are  some  types  of  environment  which  are  in  themselves 
unfavorable  to  any  permanent  sense  of  worth.  Such  an 
environment  arouses  no  great  and  generally  felt  need  in  the 
populations  supported  by  it.  Wants  are  easily  satisfied,  and 
there  are  no  great  dangers  to  avoid.  It  is  also  no  doubt  due  to 
the  character  of  the  environment,  in  large  measure,  that  the 
social  organization  is  itself  of  high  or  low  grade.  But  the 
character  of  society,  whatever  its  cause,  reacts  powerfully,  as 

*  F.  Boas,  International  Quarterly,  Vol.  XI,  p,  341, 


So  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

we  have  shown,  upon  the  primitive  conceptions  of  worth 
mediated  by  natural  conditions,  so  that  a  double  force  may 
be  said  to  be  active  in  the  development  of  the  higher  value 
attitudes. 

The  primitive  Semites  furnish  a  good  deal  of  illustration  of 
the  importance  of  the  social  factor  in  the  formation  and 
development  of  value-concepts.  The  exigencies  of  desert 
life  on  the  scattered  oases  capable  of  supporting  only  small 
bodies  of  people  resulted  in  the  formation  of  small  and  rela- 
tively compact  clans.  Stability  of  organization  was  neces- 
sary for  a  clan  which  held  its  own  against  those  who  sought 
to  secure  its  food  advantages.  This  stability  resulted  in 
many  customs  built  up  about  the  problems  of  food,  and  these, 
in  turn,  furnished  the  basis  for  their  conceptions  of  value.  Of 
these  customs  we  shall  speak  in  the  next  chapter.  We  are 
here  interested  only  to  see  that  the  value-concepts  of  later 
Semitic  culture  were  given  form  and  permanence  by  these 
primitive  social  activities.  Mention  has  already  been  made  of 
the  important  appreciations  of  value  arising  out  of  the  notion 
of  kinship.  We  may  here  add  the  conception  of  fertility,  both 
animal  and  vegetable,  which  became  a  symbol,  in  later  times, 
of  many  religious  values,  or,  rather,  it  created  some  value-atti- 
tudes which,  under  certain  conditions,  became  religious.  Out 
of  these  primitive  activities  came  also  the  notion  of  sacrifice, 
with  all  its  subtle  meanings. 

The  fundamental  fact  is  the  persisting  social  structure 
which  expresses  itself  in  certain  sorts  of  activity.  In  the  case  of 
the  Semites,  these  activities  seem  pretty  clearly  to  have  been 
economic  ones.  Some  of  their  most  important  customs  centred 
about  the  act  of  eating  together  and  in  festivals  connected 
with  their  flocks  and  the  harvesting  of  their  most  important 
vegetable  food,  the  date.  The  problem  of  reproduction  was 
an  important  one  to  them,  probably  because  the  clans  were 


THE   GENESIS   OF  THE  RELIGIOUS  ATTITUDE     8i 

polyandrous,  and  descent  was  counted  through  the  mother, 
which  custom  is,  in  turn,  to  be  explained  by  their  economic 
conditions.  The  communal  meal  served  as  a  medium  for  the 
development  of  the  notion  of  communion  with  the  god,  and 
this  is  an  important  step  toward  the  higher  ethical  notions  of  the 
deity.  We  shall  return  to  this  point  shortly  in  the  discussion 
of  the  general  problem  of  the  development  of  the  idea  of  God. 
The  point  here  is  that  the  evolution  of  a  higher  conception  of 
worth  is  conditioned  by  the  social  act  of  eating  together. 

The  definitely  appointed  and  observed  festivals  of  the  yean- 
ing time  and  of  the  date-palm  harvest*  were  also,  with  the 
Semites,  centres  about  which  definite  values  grew  up.  In 
fact  every  one  of  their  religious  beliefs  can  he  shown  primarily 
to  have  been  an  evaluation  of  some  social  activity. 

W.  Robertson  Smith  held  that,  in  primitive  times,  among 
these  people,  everything  connected  with  the  group  or  clan  had 
its  religious  significance,  that  is  to  say,  its  value  side.  This 
diffuse  religious  consciousness  is  to  be  interpreted  as  a  stage 
antecedent  to  the  consciousness  of  any  far-reaching  values. 
It  can  hardly  be  said  to  be  a  religious  stage  at  all.  It  is 
simply  the  condition  in  which  the  various  necessary  objects  of 
endeavor  have  developed  their  appropriate  and  well-recog- 
nized technique.  It  means,  of  course,  that  these  things  must 
be  performed  with  circumspection,  but  so,  also,  it  is  with  us 
in  our  daily  work.  We  have  found  out  ways  of  doing  things, 
ways  which  appear  to  us  as  best,  and  we  usually  follow  care- 
fully the  rules  which  experience  has  thus  taught  us.  The 
primitive  man,  to  be  sure,  thought  of  all  these  activities  as 
conditioned  in  many  ways  by  spiritual  essences  or  powers, 
but  that  of  itself  made  his  acts  no  more  religious  than  are  ours 
when  we  treat  live  wires  with  caution. 

There  are  evidences   of    this  diffuse  value-consciousness 

1  Cf.  Barton,  Semitic  Origins,  pp.  iii  ff. 


82  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

among  many  other  primitive  people  than  the  Semites.  Thus, 
of  the  Hurons  we  are  told,  " '.  .  .  their  remedies  for  diseases; 
their  greatest  amusements  when  in  good  health ;  their  fishing, 
their  hunting,  and  their  trading;  the  success  of  their  crops, 
of  their  wars,  and  of  their  council;  almost  all  abound  in 
diabolical  ceremonies.'  Hardly  any  feast  was  held  at  which 
some  tobacco  or  fat  was  not  thrown  into  the  fire  as  a  mark  of 
respect  to  some  deity  or  deities."  ^  In  all  such  cases  the  re- 
ligious practices,  as  they  are  called,  are  hardly  above  the  level 
of  mere  practical  expedients.  Perhaps  one  reason  why  these 
simple  ceremonies  have  been  regarded  as  religious  has  been 
that  they  are  quite  like  the  genuine  religious  practices  of  a 
later  stage  of  development.  As  certain  of  these  values  stand 
out  and  acquire  great  prominence  in  the  social  consciousness, 
they  become  in  so  far  religious,  and  the  activities,  which  were 
before  only  practical  expedients,  are  now  transformed  into 
religious  ceremonials. 

Abundant  illustrations  could  be  found  of  the  connection 
between  the  values  recognized  by  a  people  and  their  objects 
of  economic  interest.  It  is  perfectly  natural  that  such  objects 
should,  among  many  peoples,  be  persistently  at  the  centre  of 
attention.  It  is  important  to  realize  that  it  is  this  ability  to 
claim  attention  that  is  the  basis  of  the  value-consciousness 
rather  than  the  mere  fact  of  economic  utility.  The  values 
recognized  by  the  Kafirs  of  South  Africa  and  by  the  Todos  of 
India  are  clearly  extensions  of  economic  worths.  So  are  many 
of  those  of  the  Australians,  as  we  have  already  pointed  out. 

But,  among  peoples  where  the  problem  of  food  is  less  serious, 
the  activities,  and  hence  the  values,  have  been  of  quite  a  diflfer- 
ent  sort.  It  has  been  shown  that  the  negroes  of  West  Africa 
find  it  comparatively  easy  to  obtain  food,  so  that  the  attention 

*  Sara  H.  Stites,  The  Economics  of  the  Iroqmis,  p.  135.  The  quotation  is 
from  Jesuit  Relations,  Vol.  XXXVIII,  p.  53. 


THE   GENESIS   OF   THE  RELIGIOUS  ATTITUDE     83 

is  left  free  for  other  things.  Their  values  are  located  in  high 
hills,  in  dangerous  pools  and  watercourses,  and  in  diseases 
such  as  smallpox.  Here,  however,  as  we  have  attempted  to 
indicate,  there  is  a  low  degree  of  social  solidarity,  and  there 
is  therefore  small  chance  for  these  values  to  assume  a  definite 
and  permanent  form. 

The  Head-hunting  Dyaks  of  Borneo  furnish  another  inter- 
esting variation.  Here  we  find  well-organized  groups  who 
have  begun  head-hunting  in  comparatively  recent  times.* 
About  this  vocation,  or  diversion,  cluster  their  values.  The 
heads  of  enemies  are  the  bearers  of  the  greatest  blessings  to  the 
captors.  They  say  that  the  value  of  the  captured  head  was 
first  called  to  their  attention  by  a  dream  which  one  of  their 
leaders  once  had,  but  the  realization  of  the  value  by  the  group 
as  a  whole  is  to  be  attributed  rather  to  the  exciting  expedi- 
tions in  which  all  unite  their  efforts.  The  extreme  precautions 
necessary  to  insure  success  and  the  subsequent  necessity  of 
guarding  their  own  long-house  from  possible  retaliations  all 
involve  considerable  mental  tension,  which  easily  finds  its 
objective  symbol  in  the  fruits  of  the  hunt,  namely,  the  cap- 
tured heads.  In  the  case  of  these  Head-hunters,  as  can  be 
readily  seen,  the  objects  of  attention  are  not  directly  economic. 
They  seem  to  have  very  little  religious  belief  aside  from 
what  finds  expression  in  the  captured  heads;  these  are  their 
gods,  the  transmitters  to  them  of  every  conceivable  blessing. 
The  explanation  is  that  the  attention  of  these  savages  is  so 
entirely  absorbed  in  these  expeditions  and  in  the  consequences 
of  the  expeditions,  that  they  find  therein  the  complete  expres- 
sion of  their  ideals  of  life,  of  their  highest  conceptions  of 
value.  The  importance  of  the  compact  social  group  in  the 
creation  of  these  values  is  self-evident. 

*  Vide  M.  Morris,  Journal  of  the  American  Oriental  Society^  Vol.  XXVI, 
p.  165. 


84  DEVELOPMENT   OF   RELIGION 

That  which  has  been  in  some  measure  illustrated,  and  in  a 
degree  proved,  it  is  hoped,  may  be  restated  thus :  A  compact 
group,  such  as  may  be  found  among  the  Central  Australians, 
the  Dyaks,  or  the  primitive  Semites,  furnishes  a  basis  on  which 
the  notion  of  far-reaching  values  can  take  footing.  The 
relatively  stable  social  background  is  absolutely  essential  to  the 
extended  development  of  value-attitudes.  This  seems  to  be 
certain,  because  where  the  social  organization  is  of  low  grade 
and  hence  somewhat  fluent,  the  values  mediated  are  found  to 
be  correspondingly  indefinite,  uncertain,  private,  and  more  or 
less  transitory.  The  social  group  may  be  said  to  furnish  the 
matrix  from  which  are  differentiated  all  permanent  notions 
of  value,  and  these  are  primarily  conscious  attitudes  aroused 
in  connection  with  activities  which  mediate  problems  more 
or  less  important  for  the  perpetuation  of  the  social  body. 
These  values  may  be  of  any  kind,  but  especially  aesthetic 
and  religious,  which  are  representative  of  such  values  in  their 
most  definite  form.  Whether  the  attitude  turns  out  to  be 
religious,  or  whether  aesthetic,  depends  upon  the  nature  of  the 
context  which  gives  rise  to  it.  In  general  it  may  be  said  that 
the  difference  between  them  is  one  of  relationships  rather  than 
of  intrinsic  content.  Thus,  the  peculiarity  of  aesthetic  values 
is  that  they  are  detached  or  isolated  from  the  problems  of 
life,  while  values  of  the  religious  type  are  expressions  of  these 
problems  in  their  most  ultimate  form.  But  in  any  case  there 
can  be  no  question  as  to  the  close  connection  of  the  two  atti- 
tudes, and  in  all  probability  they  are  always  intermingled. 
A  valuational  attitude  in  which  the  emphasis  is  upon  the 
detached  enjoyment  of  the  moment  would,  of  course,  be 
aesthetic,  while  it  would  be  religious  if  the  emphasis  were 
upon  the  consciousness  of  the  relationship  of  the  act  to  the 
welfare  of  the  group.  In  some  types  of  the  modern  religious 
consciousness  the  connection  is  not  with  the  group  but  with 


THE   GENESIS   OF   THE   RELIGIOUS  ATTITUDE     85 

some  conception  of  the  ultimate  welfare  of  the  individual.  In 
primitive  religion  such  a  conception  is  impossible.  The  indi- 
vidual can  think  of  his  own  continued  welfare  only  in  connec- 
tion with  the  continued  prosperity  of  the  group. 

Many  illustrations  may  be  found  of  the  interrelation  of  the 
aesthetic  and  the  religious  in  social  activities.  Thus,  the  per- 
formance of  the  Mountain  Chant,  a  nine-day  religious  festival 
of  the  Navaho,  affords  not  only  opportunity  for  religious  ex- 
pression but  also  for  a  jolly  social  time.^  The  merrymaking 
attendant  upon  the  religious  rites  of  primitive  Semitic  peoples 
is  evidence  of  the  large  aesthetic  element  involved  in  them. 
The  intricate  details  of  the  Australian  ceremonials  are  un- 
doubtedly productive  of  aesthetic  reactions  in  the  per- 
formers and  onlookers,  just  as  with  ourselves  in  watching  the 
evolutions  of  a  body  of  soldiers,  or  any  other  complicated 
activity. 

Thus  far  our  main  object  has  been  to  point  out  the  way  in 
which  the  social  body  mediates  the  development  of  value- 
attitudes.  Of  necessity,  many  religious  acts  have  been  used  as 
illustrative  of  the  process.  A  few  words  yet  remain  to  be  said 
to  connect  it  more  definitely  with  the  religious  consciousness 
per  se.  The  religious  sense  of  the  modern  man  represents  an 
indefinite  extension  of  the  notion  of  value.  From  the  point 
of  view  here  suggested,  the  religious  attitude  may  be  said  to  be 
the  consciousness  of  the  value  of  action  in  terms  of  its  ultimate 
organization.  In  a  highly  figurative  and  symbolic  form  of 
statement  this  attitude  may  be  described  by  some  people 
as  *  living  in  the  power  of  an  endless  life.'  This  statement 
would  apply  to  the  primitive  as  well  as  to  the  modem  concep- 
tion of  religious  value,  for  the  activity  organized  with  reference 
to  the  welfare  of  the  tribe  as  a  whole  is  equivalent,  psycholog- 
ically, to  behavior  viewed  by  the  individual  as  significant 

*  5th  Annual  Report  of  the  Bureau  of  Ethnology,  p.  386. 


86  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

eternally  with  reference  to  his  own  destiny.  To  the  primitive 
man,  the  group  to  which  he  belongs  is  his  universe ;  whatever 
else  appeals  to  him  in  any  way  is  taken,  as  a  matter  of  course, 
to  be  related  to  the  group.  Thus,  in  several  parts  of  the  world, 
the  natural  races  have  conceived  the  whites  as  the  embodied 
spirits  of  their  own  departed  tribesmen.*  The  extent  to  which 
the  conception  referred  to  above  is  generalized,  or  develops, 
depends  upon  the  character  of  the  organization  of  the  group. 
If,  as  we  have  pointed  out,  the  group  is  definite  and  compact, 
there  will  be  many  activities  in  which  it,  as  a  whole,  takes  part, 
and  there  is  therefore  more  opportunity  afforded  for  the 
development  of  conceptions  of  ultimate  value,  that  is,  concep- 
tions which  are,  as  a  matter  of  course,  expressed  in  terms 
of  the  entire  group.  Such  values  are  ultimate  values  because 
the  primitive  man's  horizon  is  bounded  by  his  tribe.  They 
cannot  even  be  a  degree  less  than  ultimate,  because,  from 
the  first,  they  have  come  to  consciousness  as  concerning  the 
whole  group. 

The  question  of  the  relationship  between  the  religious  con- 
ceptions and  attitudes  of  the  culture  races,  and  these,  described 
in  this  chapter,  which  lie  so  close  to  activities  which  mediate 
the  pressing  problems  of  existence,  is  an  interesting  one. 
As  was  pointed  out  in  Chapter  II,  when  the  notion  of  value  is 
once  aroused,  it  can  be  transmitted  from  generation  to  genera- 
tion in  connection  with  the  activities  with  which  it  is  associ- 
ated, by  what  has  been  called  social  heredity.  In  time  these 
activities  are  transformed  into  rituals  of  more  or  less  refined 
and  subdued  types,  but  they  serve  still  to  sustain  the  concepts 
and  attitudes  to  which  they  at  the  first  gave  rise.  It  is  impor- 
tant to  see  that  the  mere  verbal  transmission  of  the  religious 
concepts  would  not  sufficfe  for  the  excitation  of  the  religious 
attitude  in  the  new  generation.  The  setting  of  activity,  either 
*  Nassau,  op.  cit.,  p.  57. 


THE   GENESIS   OF   THE   RELIGIOUS   ATTITUDE     87 

of  ritual  or  of  prescribed  religious  duties  or  virtues,  serves  to 
give  body  to  the  concepts,  or  to  give  them  vital  connection 
with  life.  It  is  only  thus  that  the  psychic  state  which  we  have 
called  an  attitude  could  originally  appear,  and  its  reappear- 
ance in  each  generation  is  due  to  the  continuance  of  the 
same  type  of  conditions. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE   ORIGIN   OF   RELIGIOUS   PRACTICES   AND   CEREMONIALS 

In  the  preceding  chapter  the  attempt  was  made  to  show  that 
the  social  atmosphere  furnishes  the  sine  qua  non  of  that  pecul- 
iar type  of  consciousness  known  as  the  religious.  It  is  this 
atmosphere  which  has  produced  the  religious  quality  as  well 
as  conditioned  the  development  of  the  very  sense  of  value 
itself. 

We  wish  now  to  go  a  step  farther.  The  religious  acts 
and  ideas  are  themselves  an  organic  part  of  the  activities 
of  the  social  body.  They  are,  in  fact,  social  acts.  Under 
certain  circumstances,  customs  become  religious,  or  acquire 
religious  values.  It  may  be  said  that  religious  practices 
are  social  habits  specialized  in  a  certain  direction.  That  a 
nation's  gods  are  direct  reflections  of  its  social  and  political 
ideals,  and  that  the  deities  cannot  represent  a  higher  ethical 
plane  than  that  of  the  worshippers,  is  well  recognized  by 
students  of  religion.  Barton  gives  clear  expression  to  these 
facts  when  he  says,  ''It  is  a  law  which  may  be  regarded  as 
practically  universal,  that  the  religious  conceptions  of  a  people 
are  expressed  in  forms  which  are  modelled,  in  large  degree, 
on  those  political  and  social  institutions  which  the  economical 
conditions  of  their  situation  have  produced.  Thus,  a  god 
could  not  be  conceived  as  a  father  where  marriage  was  so 
unstable  that  fatherhood  was  no  recognized  feature  of  the 
social  structure,  nor  as  a  king  among  a  people  into  whose 
experience  the  institution  of  kingship  had  never  entered."  ^ 

*  Barton,  Semitic  Origins,  p.  82. 
88 


THE   ORIGIN   OF   RELIGIOUS   PRACTICES  89 

But  we  may  go  even  farther  than  this  and  maintain  that 
religious  beliefs  and  practices  are  not  merely  modelled  upon 
the  analogy  of  a  people's  economic  and  social  life.  The 
religious  life  is  this  social  life  in  one  of  its  phases.  It  is  an 
organic  part  of  the  activity  of  the  social  body,  not  merely 
something  built  upon  it.  In  other  words,  as  before  suggested, 
we  may  hold  that  the  religious  aspects  of  a  people's  life  are 
special  differentiations  of  the  social  order  which  appear  under 
certain  favoring  conditions. 

It  may  be  appropriate,  before  attempting  to  illustrate  our 
specific  point,  to  review  briefly  the  well-recognized  rela- 
tionship between  the  religion  of  a  people  and  its  political 
structure. 

Although  this  relationship  is  so  generally  admitted,  it 
gains  an  additional  significance  from  the  point  of  view  thus 
far  developed.  That  is  to  say,  the  relation  is  no  merely  ex- 
ternal one,  but  is  organic  with  the  very  development  of  the 
political  structure  itself.  The  following  cases  are  illustrative ; 
many  more  might  be  given,  and  others  will  no  doubt  occur 
to  the  reader.  The  religions  of  all  the  peoples  of  antiquity 
were  inseparable  from  their  political  organization,  a  fact  par- 
ticularly true  of  the  ancient  Egyptians  and  of  the  Israelites. 
The  establishment  of  a  monarchial  government  at  Jerusalem 
and  the  centralization  of  the  worship  of  Yahweh  at  that  place 
are  practically  interchangeable  terms.  The  first  thought  of  the 
leaders  in  the  secession  of  the  northern  tribes  was  to  establish 
centres  in  the  north  about  which  their  traditional  religious 
conceptions  could  find  expression.  To  niany  of  the  Hebrews 
the  destruction  of  Jerusalem  and  the  dissolution  of  their 
national  faith  were  synonymous.  The  same  intimate  relation- 
ship between  government  and  religion  in  Persia,  Greece,  and 
Rome  is  well  known.  Among  the  ancient  Teutons  the  priest- 
hood was  essentially  a  tribal  institution.     Both  in  the  tribal 


90  DEVELOPMENT  OF  RELIGION 

subdivisions  and  the  household  the  priestly  duties  were  per- 
formed by  the  temporal  head.  This  condition  of  affairs 
seems  to  indicate  that  the  development  of  the  priesthood 
was  intimately  connected  with  the  development  of  social 
structure. 

Eskimo  laws  and  customs  are  closely  connected,  if  not  iden- 
tical, with  religious  opinions.  Rink  tells  us  that  the  abolition 
of  the  angekokj  the  medicine-man  and  religious  leader  of  a 
group,  would  mean  the  destruction  of  every  authority  in  the 
tribe.*  We  have  referred  already  to  the  judicial-social  gather- 
ings of  these  peoples,  and  shall  have  occasion  to  mention  them 
again  in  another  connection.  Here  they  are  of  interest  as 
an  illustration  of  how  the  governmental,  religious,  and  social 
functions  of  a  primitive  group  may  find  expression  in  a  single 
activity.  The  rudimentary  religion  of  the  Australians  de- 
pended upon  the  old  men  who  were  the  repositories  of  tribal 
lore,  leaders  in  the  ceremonies,  and  the  nearest  approach  to 
political  rulers  whom  these  people  knew.  There  is  and  was, 
among  them,  absolutely  no  demarcation  between  religious  and 
governmental  control.  The  coast  tribes  of  the  Malay  Penin- 
sula, repeatedly  subjugated  by  foreign  invaders,  lost  their  na- 
tive political  organization  and  probably  with  it  their  religion, 
the  remnants  of  which  persist  to-day  as  magic  plus  a  great 
body  of  myth,  or  folklore.^  It  seems  possible  that  myth  aq|| 
tradition  might  more  likely  persist  after  a  political  catastrophe 
than  ceremonials,  not  because  they  are  more  truly  the  essence 
of  religion  than  are  the  ceremonials,  but  because  their  pres- 
ervation and  transmission  is  a  simpler  matter.  When*,  how- 
ever, the  myths  lose  the  support  of  the  active  attitudes,  partly 
represented  in  the  ceremonials,  they  quickly  lose  their  religious 
character  and  eventually  lapse  into  mere  folklore. 

*  Rink,  Greenlanders,  p.  142. 

'  Skeat,  Malay  Magic,  London,  1900. 


OF 

ORIGIN   OF   RELIGIOUS   PRACTICES  91 

Of  the  Pueblo  Indians,  we  are  told,  the  civil  officials  and 
war  captains  are  also  religious  functionaries,  and  that  their 
government  in  general  is  closely  blended  with  their  religious 
institutions.  Their  sociology  and  religion  are  so  intimately 
woven  together  that  the  study  of  one  cannot  be  pursued  with- 
out the  other.^  Of  the  Tusayan  Pueblos  it  is  said  that  the 
Spanish  priests  sought  to  prohibit  the  sacred  dances  and 
votive  offerings  to  the  nature  deities,  and  to  suppress  all 
secret  rites,  religious  orders,  and  societies,  but  that  these 
were  too  closely  incorporated  with  the  system  of  gentes  and 
other  family  kinships  to  admit  of  extinction.^ 

Nassau,  writing  of  the  West  Africans,  says:  "Religion 
is  intimately  mixed  with  every  one  of  these  aforementioned 
sociological  aspects  of  family,  rights  of  property,  authority, 
tribal  organization,  judicial  trials,  punishments,  intertribal 
relations,  and  commerce." '  In  the  kingdoms  of  Dahomi  and 
Porto  Novo  the  kings  are  regarded  as  the  heads  of  the  priest- 
hood. As  Ellis  remarks,  "  this  is  not  merely  the  union  of 
despotism  and  priestcraft,  but  is  rather  an  illustration  of  the 
intimate  connection  between  religion  and  social  structure. "  * 
Many  writers  have  made  us  familiar  with  the  fact  that  the 
family,  social,  and  political  life  of  the  Japanese  is  based  on 
their  religion. 

However,  it  is  scarcely  necessary  to  multiply  these  general 
illustrations.  It  may  be  regarded  as  a  generally  accepted 
fact  that  religion,  morality,  and  law  form  an  undiffer- 
entiated whole  in  primitive  societies.  This  is  true  even  in 
societies  of  a  high  degree  of  culture,  the  continuity  of  whose 

*  Spencer,  F.  C,  The  Education  of  the  Pueblo  Child,  p.  29. 

*  Mrs.  M.  C,  Stevenson,  The  Sia,  Annual  Report  of  the  Bureau  of  Eth- 
nology ( 1 889-1 890). 

*  Nassau,  Fetichism  in  West  Africa,  p.  25. 

*  See  his  Tshi-,  Ewe-,  and  Yoruba-speaking  People  of  the  Gold  and  Slave 
Coasts,  especially  p.  144  of  The  Yoruba-speaking  Peoples. 


92  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

evolution  has  not  been  too  much  interrupted  by  external  in- 
fluences.^ Such  facts  as  these  have  the  greatest  significance 
when  taken  in  connection  with  the  hypothesis  that  the  reli- 
gious activities  of  a  group  of  people  are  fundamentally  their 
practical,  social,  and  'control'  activities,  which  have,  accord- 
ing to  well-recognized  psychological  laws,  undergone  a  special 
development.  The  religious  consciousness,  as  a  body  of 
psychic  attitudes,  dispositions,  concepts,  and  beliefs,  represents 
the  net  outcome  of  the  overt  evolution.  Specific  and  detailed 
illustrations  in  support  of  this  further  point  will  now  be  offered. 
The  Kwakiutl  Indians  of  the  Northwest  furnish  interesting 
evidence,  which  will  serve  as  a  transition  from  the  type  of 
cases  given  above  ^  and  the  ones  which  are  to  follow.  Their 
present  social  organization  is  not  the  same  as  that  upon  which 
their  religious  life  is  based.  We  are  apparently  not  able  at 
present  to  account  for  this  state  of  affairs,  but  it  is,  in  any  case, 
a  most  significant  fact  that  their  entire  social  organization 
changes,  when,  in  the  winter  season,  they  begin  to  celebrate 
the  rites  of  their  secret  societies.  *' Instead  of  being  grouped 
in  clans,  the  Indians  are  now  grouped  according  to  the  spirits 
which  have  initiated  them. "  In  the  various  groups,  divisions 
are  made  according  to  the  dances  or  ceremonies  bestowed 
on  the  persons  composing  those  groups.  Societies,  in  other 
words, take  the  place  of  the  clans.  "The  object  of  the  whole 
winter  ceremonial  is,  first,  to  bring  back  the  youth  who  is 
supposed  to  stay  (i.e.  to  be  staying)  with  the  supernatural 
being  who  is  the  protector  of  his  society,  and  then,  when  he  I 
has  returned  in  a  state  of  ecstasy, "  to  restore  him  to  sanity 
by  the  exorcism  of  songs  and  dances.^  We  wish  to  call 
especial  attention  to  the  fact  that  we  have  here  a  series  of 

^  Cf.  Farnell,  Evolution  of  Religion,  p.  109.  '  Vide  supra,  pp.  89  fif. 

"Franz  Boas,  "The  social  organization  and  the  secret  societies  of  the 
Kwakiutl  Indians,"  Report  of  the  U.S.  National  Museum,  1895,  pp.  418  ff. 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  RELIGIOUS  PRACTICES  93 

religious  ceremonies  which  are  so  closely  connected  with  a 
certain  type  of  social  organization  that  that  social  order  must 
be  reinstated  before  the  ceremonies  can  be  performed.  Such 
a  condition  as  this  seems  to  point  strongly  to  an  organic  con- 
nection between,  if  not  identity  of,  religious  practices  and  the 
activities  expressive  of  a  certain  type  of  social  structure.  In 
the  next  place,  it  is  to  be  noted  that  these  religious  ceremonials 
are  not  directed  toward  any  deity,  nor  are  they  strictly  worship- 
ful acts,  but  they  rather  possess  for  their  performers  immediate 
practical  importance  for  the  maintenance  of  the  social  organ- 
ization, i.e.  they  are  directed  toward  bringing  the  novices 
safely  back  and  restoring  them  to  reason.  Here,  then,  are 
religious  activities  which  are  primarily  a  necessary  part  of  the 
practices  of  a  social  group. 

We  should  interpret  from  this  point  of  view  the  many  state- 
ments of  ethnologists  regarding  the  general  religiosity  apparent 
in  so  many  of  the  diverse  phases  of  primitive  life.  For  example, 
*' There  is,  of  course,  a  great  deal  of  superstitious  practice 
connected  with  all  these  performances  {i.e.  in  Pueblo  life),  for 
the  Indian  is  so  fettered  to  his  complicated  creed  that  his  most 
insignificant  actions  are  associated  with  some  ritualistic  per- 
formance. "  ^  The  fact  to  which  all  such  statements  point  is 
that  there  is  always  a  backgroimd  of  more  or  less  necessary 
social  activity,  from  which  definite  religious  customs  emerge, 
so  gradually,  however,  that  one  type  constantly  tends  to  fuse 
with  the  other. 

We  may  take  occasion  here  to  remark  the  connection, 
among  many  primitive  peoples,  of  religious  rites  and  some 
sort  of  secret  societies.^    It  seems  that  these  societies  are 

*  A.  F.  Bandelier,  Papers  of  the  Archaeological  Institute  of  America,  Vol. 
Ill,  p.  161. 

'  Cf .  Webster,  Primitive  Secret  Societies,  for  a  general  discussion  of  the 
whole  problem  of  the  origin  and  functions  of  such  organizations. 


94  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

particularly  apt  to  be  found  *  where  the  general  social  organ- 
ization is  defective.  However  obscure  may  be  the  causes 
leading  to  the  formation  of  secret  societies  in  a  primitive 
group,  the  fact  of  the  connection  therewith  of  some  sort 
of  ceremonial  is  a  striking  illustration  of  our  point  that 
religious  ceremonies  are  in  some  way  primarily  the  natural 
expression  of  group  life  in  its  various  practical,  social,  and 
play  phases. 

Another  excellent  illustration  of  the  dependence  of  a  reli- 
gious rite  upon  some  sort  of  social  structure  is  that  of  a 
certain  type  of  sacrifice  among  the  Todas.  Nearly  all  the 
Toda  clans  are  divided  into  two  subdivisions,  or  kudr^  and  the 
offerings,  in  this  type  of  sacrifice,  "  always  pass  from  one  kudr 
to  another.  .  .  .  There  are  a  few  clans  of  recent  origin 
which  have  no  kudr,  and  the  members  of  these  clans  cannot 
make  the  offerings.  In  other  clans,  one  kudr  has  become 
extinct,  and  so  long  as  no  occasion  for  these  ceremonies 
should  arise,  nothing  is  done  to  supply  the  deficiency.  As  a 
general  rule,  it  is  only  when  some  trouble  arises  which  may 
require  one  or  other  of  these  ceremonies  that  a  redistribution 
of  the  members  of  the  clan  is  made,  and  it  is  decided  that  one 
or  more  of  the  pblm,  or  smaller  subdivisions  of  the  clan, 
shall  be  constituted  a  new  kudr, "  ^ 

It  will  thus  be  seen  that  we  pass  imperceptibly  from  these 
types  of  religion,  which  are  definitely  related  to  political 
structure,  to  types  which  are  quite  as  definitely  related  to 
social  organization  and  to  phases  of  social  activity.  These 
latter  types  of  religion  we  shall  shortly  discuss  in  considerable 
detail.  In  the  meantime  it  will  be  significant  to  note  the 
extent  to  which  definiteness  of  religious  consciousness  is 
associated  with  definiteness  of  social  organization.     If  the 

*  R.  H.  Codrington,  The  Melanesians,  Chaps.  V,  VI. 
»  W.  H.  R.  Rivers,  The  Todas,  London,  1906,  p.  295. 


THE   ORIGIN  OF   RELIGIOUS   PRACTICES  95 

general  thesis  of  the  chapter  —  that  religious  acts  and  ideas 
are  an  organic  part  of  the  activities  and  ideas  of  the  social 
body  —  is  true,  we  should  probably  find  diffuse  forms  of 
religion  among  those  peoples  who  possess  little  social  differ- 
entiation or  little  social  solidarity. 

The  negroes  of  the  African '  Gold  Coast, '  described  by  Ellis, 
seem,  in  many  features  of  their  life,  to  be  examples  of  such  a 
state  of  affairs.  The  Tshi-speaking  peoples,  according  to  this 
author,  have  at  present  no  well-established  social  organization 
that  extends  beyond  the  village  community.  The  character 
of  the  surface  topography  is  such  that  there  can  be  little 
development  of  tribal  life.  There  are  some  customs  regulat- 
ing initiation  and  marriage,  but  the  reader  does  not  get  the  im- 
pression that  they  are  very  definite  in  nature,  nor  that  they 
involve  the  entire  local  group  in  their  performance.  The  food 
problem  is  not  a  pressing  one,  so  that  here  also  there  is  no  need 
for  united  action  and  consequent  organization  of  the  group. 
The  religious  ideas  of  these  peoples  are  as  vague  and  as  fluent 
as  their  social  consciousness.  Thus  they  recognize  four  classes 
of  deities.  The  first  two  classes  are  nature  deities,  which  are 
fixed  in  number,  but  have  so  little  place  in  the  thought  or  re- 
gard of  the  negroes  that  they  can  be  called  gods  only  in  name. 
The  spirits  of  the  third  and  fourth  classes  are  fluctuating  in 
number,  the  natives'  theory  being  that  they  may  be  increased  by 
appointment  on  the  part  of  the  deities  of  the  upper  classes. 
These  lesser  spirits  serve  as  tribal,  village,  family,  and  individ- 
ual gods.  The  whole  system  of  conduct  regarding  them  seems 
to  be  very  fluent.  There  is  not  enough  of  a  unified  tribal  con- 
sciousness to  generalize  and  render  permanent  the  deity 
of  any  one  locality.  For  the  same  reason  the  already  existing 
general  deities  are  pretty  largely  mere  names  which  arouse 
no  religious  feelings  of  any  sort.  The  real  religion  of  these 
people  seems  to  consist  in  a  vague  regard  for  a  lot  of  detached 


96  DEVELOPMENT   OF   RELIGION 

values;  spirits  are  worshipped  or  rejected  in  the  most  capri- 
cious manner.  In  all  these  matters  there  is  much  less  fixity 
and  definiteness  than  is  to  be  found  among  the  adjoining  tribes, 
the  Ewe-  and  Yoruba-speaking  peoples  of  the  Slave  coast. 
Since,  as  has  been  already  pointed  out,  the  social  organi- 
zation of  these  tribes  is  in  many  ways  much  farther  advanced 
than  is  that  of  the  Tshi,  it  seems  legitimate  to  infer  that  the 
vague  religion  of  the  latter  is  in  some  way  related  to,  or  con- 
ditioned by,  their  rudimentary  social  structure.  Regarding 
their  social  structure,  Ellis  says  that  they  are  divided  into 
twelve  totemic  divisions;  marriage  is  exogamous;  descent  is 
counted  in  the  female  line ;  there  is  general  abstinence  from 
eating  the  totem ;  of  religious  ceremonials,  some  are  propi- 
tiations, others  concern  the  dead,  and  still  others  relate  to  hunt- 
ing and  harvesting.  There  are  also  some  ceremonies  which 
accompany  the  return  of  armies,  the  reception  of  visitors,  and 
other  important  events  in  the  social  life  of  the  tribe.  These 
ceremonies  are,  however,  rather  indefinite,  and  do  not  seem 
to  involve  large  portions  of  the  tribe  in  such  a  way  as  indicates 
the  presence  of  a  very  marked  social  consciousness.  The 
priests  form  a  somewhat  indefinite  order  which  is  being  con- 
stantly recruited  from  the  outside,  anybody  who  wishes  being 
readily  admitted.  Their  chief  function  is  to  exorcise  and 
manipulate  the  various  spirits  which  may  happen  to  be  of 
concern  to  any  individual  or  to  any  village.  There  can  hardly, 
in  fact,  be  said  to  be  a  definite  priesthood,  but  merely  a  some- 
what chaotic  group  of  individuals,  with  no  recognizable  organ- 
ization, with  simply  a  few  trade  secrets  and  possibly  with  a 
little  more  cunning  than  their  fellows,  all  of  which,  together 
with  possible  neurotic  tendencies,  render  them  persons  of 
power  within  the  tribes. 

The  Ewe-speaking  people  have  a  more  highly  developed 
political  organization  than  do  the  Tshi.    Some  of  the  tribes 


THE   ORIGIN   OF   RELIGIOUS   PRACTICES  97 

are  united  into  the  kingdoms  of  Dahomey  and  Porto 
Novo.  Others  are  semi-independent.  It  is  significant  to 
note  that  here  the  general  nature  deities  are  more  than 
names;  in  fact,  that  they  are  of  more  importance  than 
the  tribal  or  local  gods.  The  priesthood  has  a  definite 
organization,  of  which,  in  the  monarchial  groups,  the  kings 
are  regarded  as  the  heads.^  Even  the  king,  however,  is 
not  supreme,  but  must  pay  due  regard  to  religious  custom, 
meaning,  it  would  seem,  that  custom  is  more  primitive  than 
kingship,  and  that  custom  therefore  expresses  the  deeper 
religious  values. 

The  social  organization  of  the  Yoruba  peoples  is  still  more 
highly  developed,  for  with  them  descent  is  counted  through 
both  parents,  and  succession  is  in  the  male.  The  priesthood 
is  divided  into  recognized  orders,  and  the  whole  is  formed 
into  a  definite  secret  society.  Here  the  local,  fluent  spirits 
are  thrust  entirely  uito  the  background,  and  the  general  gods 
are  supreme. 

The  Kafirs  of  South  Africa  have  no  definite  social  structure. 
Their  customs  are  numerous  enough,  but  scattering  and  chang- 
ing. They  have  no  conception  of  fixity  in  anything,  not  even 
in  the  case  of  their  gods,  their  legends,  or  their  myths.  All 
these  matters,  whether  of  custom  or  belief,  vary  indefinitely, 
having  apparently  no  other  standard  than  the  whim  of  the 
individual.  The  notion  of  Umkulunkulu,  one  of  their  chief  di- 
vinities, is  worth  noting  in  this  connection.  In  the  first  place, 
their  idea  of  him  is  extremely  hazy,  and  there  is  little  agree- 
ment as  to  who  he  really  is.  Sometimes  he  is  called  a  creator, 
sometimes  a  great-great-grandfather;  in  fact,  all  their  more 
remote  ancestors  go  by  this  name.  As  the  family  has  its 
Umkulunkulu,  so  does  the  tribe,  and  naturally,  also,  the 
world.     In  other  words,  there  is  no  definite  social  structure 

*  Ellis,  The  Ewe-speaking  Peoples  of  the  Slave  Coast.     Cf.  supra,  p.  91. 

H 


98  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

among  the  Kafirs  which  can  unify  customs  and  can  afiford 
for  beliefs  a  fixed  standard.* 

The  Masai,  a  division  of  the  negroes  of  East  Africa,  present 
the  same  deficiency  of  social  organization,  united  with  indefinite 
religious  beliefs  and  practices.  Their  commonest  word  for  a 
deity  is  used  indiscriminately  of  various  striking  objects,  of 
natural  phenomena,  and  of  spirits.  Their  worship,  like  their 
belief,  is  vague,  and  lacking  in  ceremonial.  The  customs  of 
the  Masai,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Kafirs,  are  numerous,  but  in- 
dividualistic rather  than  social;  that  is,  the  social  groups  do 
not  meet  to  perform  rites  of  any  sort.  The  groups  are  divided 
into  boys,  warriors,  and  elders.  The  warriors  are  a  well- 
organized  body  of  young  men  who  have  no  other  desire 
apparently  than  military  glory.  The  elders  have  little  or  no 
power,  and  consequently  among  them  no  state  such  as  Uganda 
has  developed.  The  nearest  approach  to  a  central  and  supe- 
rior authority  is  the  medicine-man,  who  is  scarcely  a  religious 
functionary,  since  he  does  not  stand  for  any  religious  beliefs, 
but  is  rather  a  diviner,  a  personage  strictly  analogous  to  the 
scientific  man  in  a  civilized  state.^ 

Our  preliminary  thesis,  namely,  that  a  low-grade  social 
structure  lies  back  of  chaotic  religious  ideas,  receives  fur- 
ther confirmation  from  certain  facts  regarding  the  primitive 
religions  of  North  America.  Dr.  Boas  says  ^  that  the  con- 
tinuity of  mythological  material,  "  and  therefore  its  aesthetic 
quality,  is  least  in  the  Arctic  and  in  the  Northwest.  In  the 
East,  Southeast,  and  Southwest,  where  political  and  social 
organization  has  attained  a  higher  perfection,  and  where  the 
ceremonial  life  of  the  people  is  strongly  developed,  the  origin 

^  Dudley  Kidd,  The  Essential  Kafir,  London,  1904.  See  also  Kafir 
Socialism,  by  the  same  author,  1907. 

'  A.  C.  Hollis,  Masai,  Their  Language  and  Folklore.  See  especially  the 
Introduction  by  Sir  Charles  Eliot, 

"  International  Quarterly,  Vol.  XI,  p.  341. 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  RELIGIOUS  PRACTICES  99 

story  IS  also  more  fully  developed  .  .  .  into  it  is  woven  the 
history  of  the  origin  of  those  phenomena,  around  which  cen- 
tres the  interest  of  the  Indians. "  Here  it  is  evident  that  the 
ceremonial  life  and  the  social  and  political  life  are  closely 
connected.  In  fact,  we  should  say  that  they  are  but  dif- 
ferent aspects  of  the  same  thing.  That  the  beliefs  must, 
on  their  part,  be  closely  connected  with,  if  not  the  direct 
outgrowth  of,  the  same  social  organization  is  equally  mani- 
fest.^ 

From  these  general  considerations  we  now  turn  to  seek 
specific  illustrations  of  our  theory  of  the  origin  of  religious 
practices,  especially  of  rites  and  ceremonies,  and  their  relation 
to  the  more  ordinary  activities  of  the  social  group.  Stated  in 
its  most  general  form,  the  question  before  us  is :  Why  do  the 
simpler  activities  arising  directly  out  of  the  life-process  give 
rise  to  secondary  activities,  of  which  religious  ceremonies  are 
types  ?  This  question  has  already  been  answered  in  a  general 
way  in  a  preceding  chapter  ^  in  the  discussion  of  ^  intermedi- 
ate activities. '  It  was  pointed  out  there  that  many  of  man's 
complex  activities  are  necessary  developments  from  practical 
adjustments,  due  to  the  recurrent  need  of  meeting  new  or 
more  complicated  difficulties;  that  others  are  due  to  chance 
variations  in  the  original  activity,  and  preserved  by  imitation 
until  they  become  customs.  It  was  also  pointed  out  that 
many  accessory  acts  arise  through  association  with  an  end 
which  is  insistently  held  in  attention,  when  direct  adjust- 
ments for  attaining  the  end  are  for  the  time  being  impossible. 
These  acts  are  closely  akin  to  play,  and  are  apt  to  be  strongly 
emotional,  just  because  the  practical  outgo  is,  at  the  moment, 
either  purposely  or  necessarily  held  in  check.     Primitive  cus- 

*  The  general  question  of  the  meaning  of  definiteness  of  social  organiza- 
tion should  here  be  clearly  kept  in  mind ;  vide  Chap.  VIII,  infra. 
'  Vide  supra,  Chap.  Ill,  "The  consciousness  of  value." 


100  DEVELOPMENT   OF   RELIGION 

toms  may,  then,  for  our  purposes,  be  conveniently  classed 
as  either  practical  or  as  accessory. 

I  Some  ceremonials  and  religious  practices  seem  to  be  the 
outgrowth  of  adjustments  which  to  the  savage  are  decidedly 
^practical.  Others  seem  to  be  more  related  to  play,  to  sports 
I  of  various  kinds;  and  still  others  seem  to  be  the  outgrowth 
of  feasts  of  rejoicing  before  or  after  the  harvest  or  hunt,  or  of 
feasts  and  dances  preceding  the  departure  of  a  war  party,  or 
after  its  return.  All  these  types  of  activity  are  relatively  sim- 
ple, and  it  is  easy  to  explain  them  on  psychological  grounds. 
Hence,  whatever  practices  can  be  shown  to  be  outgrowths  of 
these  elementary  activities  may  be  regarded  as  at  least  in  a 
measure  related  and  clarified.  Mere ' practical'  adjustments 
certainly  do  not  need  explanation  here,  whether  or  not  we 
hold  to  the  instrumental  view  of  consciousness.  The  other 
types  are  in  a  measure  either  derivatives  of  the '  practical,  *  or 
are  due  to  the  overflow  of  energy  after  or  during  times  of  re- 
pression or  times  of  emotional  tension.  Because  these  acces- 
sory activities  are  relatively  high  in  emotional  values,  they 
probably  furnish  the  basis  for  the  largest  number  of  religious 
ceremonials.  Purely  practical  acts,  in  environments  which 
make  heavy  demands  upon  the  attention  of  a  people,  are  apt 
to  change  frequently  as  the  necessity  of  new  adjustments 
arises,  so  that  they  do  not  form  a  good  basis  for  the  develop- 
ment of  valuational  attitudes.  When,  however,  such  acts  be- 
come relatively  fixed,  because  of  the  lack  of  change  in  the 
stimulating  environment,  they  may  become  objects  of  atten- 
tion in  themselves,  and  important  media  of  social  intercourse, 
or  at  least  of  social  expression.  Under  these  conditions  they 
frequently  acquire  religious  value. 

The  social  assemblies  of  the  Greenland  Eskimo  are  good  ex- 
amples of  *  accessory '  activities,  and  their  social  and  aesthetic 
value  is  so  great,  and  their  function  as  an  institution  of  social 


THE   ORIGIN   OF   RELIGIOUS   PRACTICES         loi 

control  is  so  evident,  that  they  maybe  considered  religious  rites. 
The  Eskimo  have,  on  the  other  hand,  many  habits  connected 
with  their  hunting,  but  these  depend  so  clearly  upon  indi- 
vidual skill  and  painstaking  practice,  and  the  conditions 
under  which  they  are  called  forth  are  so  acute,  that  they  con- 
tinue almost  of  necessity  quite  definitely '  practical,'  and  hence 
non-religious. 

The  general  point,  thus  far,  has  been  that  some  of  the  more 
fixed  activities  of  a  primitive  group  may  acquire  a  certain 
religious  value ;  in  fact,  that  these  are  the  first  manifestations 
of  religion,  furnishing  the  objective  conditions  for  the  appear- 
ance of  religion  as  a  psychic  attitude.  It  has  been  further 
shown  that  wherever  we  find  chaotic  or  fluent  religious  con- 
cepts and  practices  we  almost  always  find  a  chaotic  social 
body.  That  this  is  the  relation  existing  between  a  primitive 
social  group  and  its  religion  will,  we  believe,  be  made  more 
evident  by  the  illustrations  which  follow.  For  convenience 
as  well  as  clearness  we  group  them  into  activities  which  seem 
most  closely  allied  to  primitive  man's  'practical  adjust- 
ments, and  into  those  which  are  apparently  the  outcome  of 
his  *  accessory'  employments.  In  many  cases  the  practice, 
while  distinctly  religious,  will  bear  marks  of  a  more  or  less 
definite  relationship  to  the  *  practical'  or  'accessory'  activities 
of  the  group,  while  in  others  the  primary  character  will  be 
social  or  practical,  although  they  will  seem  to  have  a  decided 
religious  coloring.  In  a  word,  there  are  among  primitive 
peoples,  and  to  a  certain  extent  among  the  culture-races  as 
well,  many  religious  activities  which  reveal  a  kinship  to  the 
practical  activities  of  the  social  body,  and  there  are,  likewise, 
many  social  and  practical  functions  which  seem  to  be  to  a  cer- 
tain extent  religious.  Facts  such  as  these  would  apparently 
lead  to  the  conclusion  that  the  social  organization  and  its 
activities  constitute  the  ground  from  which  religious  practices 


I02  DEVELOPMENT  OF  RELIGION 

and  religious  consciousness  itself  are  the  more  or  less  complex 
development. 

In  general,  it  seems  a  legitimate  hypothesis  that  the  group, 
as  a  social,  economic,  and  political  unit,  is  the  primary  postu- 
late in  the  interpretation  of  every  phenomenon  of  human  life. 
That  is,  wherever  it  is  possible  to  use  these  phases  of  life  as 
explanations,  it  is  not  necessary  to  seek  other  and  less  obvious 
causes.  If  a  social  group  tends  naturally  to  express  itself 
in  various  practical  ways  and  in  various  social  and  playful 
forms,  then  that  process  which  is  seen  to  consist  of  one  or 
more  of  these  natural  methods  of  activity  does  not  require 
the  introduction  of  any  additional  explanation  such  as  an 
original  religious  motive.  A  social  group  is  sure,  in  any  case, 
to  have  its  practical  problems,  its  sports,  and  its  festive  occa- 
sions ;  we  may  more  easily  comprehend  how  these  phases  of 
action  could  be  productive  of  a  consciousness  of  higher  val- 
ues than  that  these  values  might  have  been  given  offhand,  that 
is,  that  they  should  possess  no  antecedents  or  natural  his- 
tory. Hence  we  are  impelled  to  believe  that  the  feasts,  dances, 
and  all  similar  processes,  found  in  such  intimate  connection 
with  practically  every  primitive  religion,  were  primarily  the 
spontaneous  expressions  of  primitive  life  under  this  or  that 
appropriate  condition.  It  is  significant  to  note  that  these 
ceremonies  do  seem  to  take  place  at  times  when  we  should,  in 
any  case,  expect  some  sort  of  an  emotional  overflow.  Navaho 
and  Moqui  ceremonies  occur  in  the  winter,  ostensibly  because 
dangerous  powers  are  less  active,  but  psychologically  because 
the  more  active  pursuits  of  these  peoples  are,  for  the  time  be-  \ 
ing,  of  necessity  suspended.  A  people,  whether  primitive  or  ' 
cultural,  would  under  such  circumstances  seek  to  divert  itself 
by  sports,  festivities,  and  dramatic  rehearsals  of  stories.  Sup- 
posing all  myths  are  merely  the  product  of  idle  fancy,  as  some 
of  them  doubtless  are,  the  impulse  would  still  be  strong  to 


THE   ORIGIN  OF  RELIGIOUS   PRACTICES  103 

act  them  out,  just  as  it  is  with  our  own  little  children,  who 
J  can  scarcely  hear  exciting  stories  without  the  same  tendency 
to  dramatize  them.  In  the  cases  above  mentioned,  there 
would  also  at  this  season  of  the  year  be  some  anxious 
thought  that  the  next  season  might  be  fruitful,  and  this 
very  antecedent  suspense  would  be  sufficient  ground,  psy- 
chologically, for  the  appearance  of  many  activities.  It 
seems  natural,  then,  that  the  things  done  at  such  a  time 
should  partake  of  the  nature  both  of  social  festivities,  pure 
and  simple,  and  of  what,  to  the  imtutored  mind,  were  prac- 
tical expedients  to  insure  success  in  the  following  season's 
work.  Possibly  some  of  these  doings  would  be  not  really 
practical  expedients,  but  rather  overflow  activities  such  as  are 
likely  to  occur  in  any  somewhat  prolonged  period  of  suspense. 
In  general,  it  is  a  fact  of  social  psychology  that  periods  of 
relaxation,  after  times  in  which  attention  has  been  rather  fully 
taken  up  with  objective  interests,  also  periods  immediately 
following  the  successful  drawing  to  a  close  of  a  long  series  of 
activities,  as  in  the  harvest  or  at  the  end  of  a  hunt,  will  be 
somewhat  full  of  emotional  tensions  which  will  find  expression 
in  various  forms  of  social  intercourse  and  in  many  activities 
closely  allied  to  play.  The  same  is  also  true  of  times  of  sus- 
pense before  or  during  a  hunt  or  conflict  of  any  kind.  Various 
joyous  acts  would  also  express  the  relief  felt  at  the  close  of 
\.  any  dreary  season,  as  in  the  springtime,  after  a  hard  winter,  or 
in  moonlight  nights,  after  the  dark  portion  of  the  month. 
The  psychological  reasons  for  such  manifestations  are  already 
fairly  well  established,  and  need  not  be  discussed  here.  We 
simply  hold  that  phenomena  of  this  sort  are  the  spontaneous 
manifestations  of  such  a  psycho-physical  organism  as  man  and 
many  animals  possess.  Now,  it  is  a  striking  fact  that  almost 
any  number  of  religious  ceremonials  are  directly  associated 
with  just  such  periods  of  stress  or  relief  as  are  mentioned 


104  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

above.  It  is  therefore  difficult  to  avoid  the  conclusion  that 
the  religious  values  of  these  acts  have  been  built  up  on  the 
basis  of  the  simpler  social  values  which  they  originally  pos- 
sessed. In  fact,  all  grades  of  practices,  from  the  avowedly 
religious  to  the  merely  social,  can  be  found  among  the  natural 
races  (and  among  the  culture-races,  too,  for  that  matter). 

The  development  of  the  religious  from  the  '  practical '  and 
from  the  social  is  seen  in  a  general  way  in  all  such  cases  as 
have  been  mentioned  in  which  the  governmental  functions  of 
a  group  are  regarded  as  religious,  and  where  governmental 
officials  are  also  religious  officials.  The  statement  has 
already  been  made  that  the  political  and  religious  in- 
stitutions of  the  Pueblo  are  closely  interwoven.  There  are 
priestly  societies  having  as  their  object  the  performance 
of  various  tribal  and  social  functions,  such  as  those  re- 
lating to  war,  medicine,  hunting,  as  well  as  those  relating 
specifically  to  ecclesiastical  life.^  The  ceremonial  life 
growing  out  of  these  religio-political  organizations  is  quite 
elaborate.  Here  we  are  interested  to  point  out  only  that  the 
purely  practical  and  economic  organization  of  society  becomes 
itself  the  basis  for  a  certain  amount  of  religious  consciousness 
and  religious  practice. 

The  Pueblo  natal  ceremonies  are  good  illustrations  of  acts 
which  have  both  a  practical  and  a  religious  value,  and  it 
certainly  seems  probable  that  the  original  character  of  the 
acts  was  practical,  acquiring  the  religious  quality  in  the  man- 
ner explained  in  Chapter  IV.  At  the  birth  of  a  child  the 
paternal  grandmother  brings  in,  among  other  things,  a  bowl 
of  water  and  a  blanket,  makes  a  yucca  suds  in  the  bowl, 
bathes  the  child  while  uttering  a  prayer  of  thanks,  rubs  the 
body  with  ashes,  and  prepares  a  bed  of  warm  sand  for  it  by 
the  side  of  the  mother.    She  puts  in  the  babe,  covers  it  with  a 

*  Spencer,  F.  C,  The  Edttcation  of  the  Pueblo  Child,  pp.  29,  51. 


THE   ORIGIN   OF   RELIGIOUS   PRACTICES         105 

blanket,  and  places  at  its  right  side  an  ear  of  corn,  if  it  is  a  • 
girl,  or  three  plumules  of  corn,  if  it  is  a  boy.^  That  these  [ 
are  ostensibly  religious  ceremonies  is  indicated  by  their  ^ 
definitely  prescribed  character,  and  by  the  various  symbolic 
acts,  such  as  the  placing  of  the  corn  by  the  child,  which  are 
intermingled  with  the  more  useful  expedients.  In  fact,  the 
clearly  practical  and  the  symbolic  are  so  fused  that  we  cannot 
doubt  that  the  whole  forms  a  religious  ceremony,  and  is  not 
merely  a  mixture  of  useful  and  religious  acts.  The  time  of 
the  birth  of  a  child  is  apparently,  among  most  peoples,  a  time 
of  considerable  emotional  suspense,  as  is  proved  by  the  al- 
m.ost  universal  prevalence  of  some  sort  of  natal  observances. 
Under  such  conditions,  the  specifically  useful  duties  of  the 
attendants  would  acquire  a  special  import  and  would  be 
fused  with  various  symbolic  acts  into  a  solemn  ceremonial. 
There  is  a  suggestion  of  the  '  practical '  in  the  method  pre- 
scribed by  religion  by  which  the  Wichita  construct  their  lodges. 
The  rules  are  very  definite ;  one  of  them  provides  that  there 
be  east  and  west  doors,  that  the  sun  may  look  in  at  its  rising  and 
setting,  and  a  hole  at  the  top  (for  smoke,  but  ostensibly  that 
the  sun  may  also  look  in  at  noon).  There  is  also  a  south  door, 
which  is  unused,  but  is  retained  that  the  south  wind  may 
enter.  Both  the  sun  and  the  south  wind  are  of  importance 
to  the  agricultural  Wichita,  and  are  consequently  deities,  or 
are  at  least  possessed  of  powers  which  make  them  objects  of 
worship.  The  fireplace  in  the  lodge  is  also  an  object  of  rever- 
ence, for  here  offerings  are  made,  food  is  cooked,  and  medi- 
cine is  heated.^    It  would  seem  that  these  and  other  elements 

*  Mrs.  M.  C.  Stevenson,  "The  religious  life  of  the  Zuiii  child,"  The 
Fifth  Annual  Report  of  the  Bureau  of  Ethnology;  cf.  Mrs.  Stevenson's  later 
study  of  the  Zuiii,  Twenty-third  Annual  Report y  Bureau  Ethnology,  especially 
pp.  294-303. 

*  Dorsey,  "The  mythology  of  the  Wichita,"  Carnegie  Institution  Publica- 
tion, No.  21,  pp.  4,  5. 


io6  DEVELOPMENT  OF  RELIGION 

of  household  construction  and  economy  have  in  the  first  place 
been  determined  by  their  usefulness,  and  that,  because  they 
remained  so  fixed  and  were  at  the  same  time  more  or  less  con- 
stantly in  the  field  of  attention  in  connection  with  the  objects 
{e.g.  the  sun  and  the  south  wind)  which  brought  to  them 
success  in  agriculture,  they  become  an  additional  means  of 
communication  with  the  powers  above. 

The  religious  dances  and  festivals  of  the  Iroquois  ^  were 
quite  clearly  of  a  social  and  semi-practical  character.  Thus, 
the  war  and  feather  dances  were  dramatic  rehearsals  of  the 
ways  real  problems  were  in  a  measure  met.  The  festivals 
of  the  Maple,  of  the  Planting,  of  the  Strawberry,  the  Green- 
corn,  the  Harvest,  and  the  New  Year,  may  be  regarded  as 
primarily  cycles  of  activities  grouped  about  important  eco- 
nomic events  in  the  life  of  the  tribe,  having  possibly  as  their 
object  the  better  control  of  the  events  which  they  preceded  or 
clustered  about,  but  they  were  in  great  measure  perpetuated 
because  they  were  the  outlets  of  strong  social  impulses  and 
emotional  tensions  which  would  at  such  times  be  aroused. 

These  same  types  of  activity,  occurring  among  peoples  of 
lower  grades  of  social  organization,  often  seem  to  possess  little 
value  beyond  that  of  play  or  social  intercourse.  Whether 
their  apparent  lack  of  a  religious  quality  is  due  to  defective 
social  structure,  of  course  cannot  be  fully  determined,  for  the 
interrelations  are  too  complicated  for  analysis,  even  if  we  had 
a  perfect  account  of  all  the  elements  involved.  But  even  if 
we  cannot  make  a  precise  correlation  between  the  social  body 
and  the  greater  or  less  religiosity  of  these  activities,  they  are 
at  least  of  great  interest  as  showing  how,  taken  in  and  of  them- 
selves, a  particular  type  of  activity  may  possess  all  grades  of 
value,  from  the  purely  social  to  the  highly  religious.  The 
Thompson  Indians  furnish  good  illustrations  of  this  type 
*  Lewis  H.  Morgan,  League  of  the  Iroquois. 


THE   ORIGIN  OF   RELIGIOUS   PRACTICES         107 

of  activity  on  what  is  apparently  a  purely  social  level.  Their 
social  organization,  Teit  says,^  was  very  loose,  neither  band  nor 
village  forming  a  permanent  social  unit.  There  was  no  line  of 
chiefs,  the  leaders  being  merely  those  preeminent  in  bravery 
or  influence,  temporary  chiefs  being  appointed  for  ceremonies, 
hunts,  or  war  parties.  These  had  no  characteristic  dress  or 
insignia.  The  tribe  also  had  no  totems,  except  in  the  case  of 
two  families  who  were  descended  from  coast  tribes.  They 
had  many  social  customs,  which  seem,  however,  to  have  been 
more  social  than  religious.  Thus  they  were  especially  fond  of 
gathering  for  feasts  and  for  the  attendant  social  intercourse. 
It  is  not  clear  from  Teit's  account  just  which  of  their  feasts 
were  in  a  degree  religious.  All  of  them,  he  says,  apparently 
held  uppermost  the  idea  of  good  fellowship.  Many  were  sim- 
ply social  gatherings,  called,  for  instance,  by  one  family  when 
it  chanced  to  have  a  large  supply  of  food,  that  it  might  show 
its  liberality  and  good-will.  Feasts  were  also  given  when  one 
family  visited  another.  There  were  also  social  gatherings 
called  potlacheSf  at  which  there  was  a  general  distribution  of 
presents  by  a  wealthy  individual  or  family.  All  of  these  cus- 
toms were  so  definitely  fixed  that  their  observance  was  cer- 
tainly a  phase  of  tribal  good  form,  if  not  of  tribal  morality 
and  religion.  At  any  rate,  they  are  interesting  as  showing  a 
rudimentary  stage  in  the  development  of  real  religious  feasts. 
The  social  gatherings  of  the  Greenlanders  are  of  the  same 
character.  Other  phases  of  the  Thompson  Indians'  religious 
beliefs  and  practices  do  not  particularly  concern  us  here,  and 
will  be  discussed  in  another  connection. 

Very  distinctly  social  festivities  accompany  the  sacred  rite 
of  the  eating  of  the  white  buffalo  among  the  Uncapapa,  and 
here,  again,  it  is  conceivable  that  the  purely  social  side  is  pri- 

*  James  Teit,  "The  Thompson  Indians,"  Memoirs  of  the  American  Mth 
sewn  of  Natural  History,  Vol.  II,  Anthropology,  I,  pp.  289  ff. 


io8  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

mary,  while  the  religious  element  is  derived  from  it.  Among 
the  Wakamba,  an  African  tribe  described  by  Decle,  there 
is  little  social  organization,  the  chief  having  only  nominal 
power.  The  tribe  is  scattered  about  in  tiny  villages,  and  has 
no  definite  religious  belief  nor  regular  ritual.  These  people 
ofiFer  interesting  illustrations,  however,  of  practices  which 
are  more  practical  and  social  than  religious.  The  following 
is  a  practical  expedient  in  which  the  group  joins  when  it 
faces  the  crisis  of  a  drought,  and  which  partakes  of  the  charac- 
ter of  a  religious  ceremony.  On  such  an  occasion  the  elders 
hold  a  meeting  and  then  take  a  calabash  of  cider  and  a  goat 
to  a  certain  kind  of  tree.  The  goat  is  there  killed,  but  not 
eaten. ^  Their  dances  are  still  more  deficient  in  definite  reli- 
gious quality.  They  occur  chiefly  among  the  young  men 
and  women  and  are  impromptu  and  sportive  rather  than  cere- 
monial in  character.  It  is  instructive  to  compare  such  groups 
as  these  with  others  of  a  more  highly  socialized  character, 
such  as  the  Pueblo,  among  whom  all  dances,  sports,  and  eco- 
nomic activities  are  undertaken  in  a  definitely  religious  frame 
of  mind.  The  Matabele,  another  of  the  tribes  described  by 
Decle,  have  some  dances  with  a  religious  significance,  as  the 
one  before  harvest,  in  which  many  villages  join.  Here  the 
political  organization  is  definite,  and  centralized  under  an 
absolute  ruler.^ 

The  Korenas,  whom  Stow  '  describes  as  having  no  religious 
rites,  not  even  that  of  circumcision,  had,  nevertheless,  the  be- 
ginnings or  the  remnants  of  such  rites  in  the  feast  given  by 
the  father  of  a  boy  entering  manhood.  In  other  words,  the 
elaborate  initiation  ceremonies  of  some  peoples  here  occur  in 
only  rudimentary  or  vestigial  form,  and  as  such  are  seen  to 

*  Decle,  Lionel,  Three  Years  in  Savage  Africa,  pp.  485  ff. 

2  Ihid.,  pp.  150  ff. 

'  Native  Races  of  South  Africa,  p.  272. 


THE   ORIGIN   OF   RELIGIOUS   PRACTICES         109 

be  merely  social  festivities.  Here,  again,  we  get  the  suggestion 
that  complex  initiation  rites  may  all,  originally,  have  been 
such  social  occasions  arising  at  a  period  of  life  which  would 
naturally  be  of  considerable  interest  to  the  family  and  the 
group. 

The  Hottentots  had  moonlight  dances  which  are  variously 
described  as  ceremonial  and  as  merely  for  pleasure.^  Stow, 
also,  describes  at  some  length  the  moonlight  dances  of  the 
Bushmen.^  He  says  the  brilliancy  of  the  moonlight  in  those 
latitudes  renders  the  night,  after  the  burning  heat  of  the  day, 
a  very  natural  occasion  for  social  enjoyment  and  sport.  The 
Bushmen  were  passionately  fond  of  dancing,  especially  during 
the  light  nights  of  the  month.  The  Bushmen  dances  seem  to 
have  been  of  every  grade,  from  the  spontaneous  overflow  of 
/  animal  spirits  to  those  of  a  clearly  religious  character.  Stow's 
account  is  so  suggestive  that  it  is  worth  quoting  in  some 
detail.  Dancing  was  their  chief  diversion,  and  was  indulged  in 
upon  every  fitting  occasion.  The  *'  universality  of  the  custom 
was  shown  from  the  fact  that  in  the  early  days,  in  the  centre 
of  every  village,  or  kraal,  or  near  every  rock  shelter,  and  in 
every  great  cave,  were  places  where  either  the  grass  or  ground 
was  beaten  flat  and  bare  from  the  frequent  repetition  of 
their  dances."  "  It  was  when  food  was  abundant,  after  hav- 
ing eaten,  that  they  gave  rein  to  their  favorite  amusement. 
Feasting  and  festivity  were  ever  accompanied  with  continu- 
ous dancing  and  rejoicing  from  the  close  of  evening  to  the 
dawn  of  the  returning  day."  "They  had  special  seasons 
when  the  dance  was  never  neglected,  such  as  the  time  of  the 
new  and  full  moon.  Dancing  began  with  the  new  moon 
as  an  expression  of  joy  that  the  dark  nights  had  ended,  and 

^  Cf.  Theal,  The  Portuguese  in  South  Africa^  and  Napier,  Excursions  in 
Souihern  Africa,  p.  59. 
^Op.  cit.,  pp.  m  ff. 


J 


no  DEVELOPMENT  OF  RELIGION 

was  continued  at  the  full  moon,  that  they  might  avail  them- 
selves of  the  delicious  coolness  after  the  heat  of  the  day, 
and  the  brilliancy  of  the  moonlight  in  this  particular  portion 
of  the  southern  hemisphere.  It  is  probable  that  similar  prac- 
tices in  a  remote  period  gave  rise,  among  some  of  the  nations 
of  antiquity,  to  their  feasts  and  festivals  of  the  new  and  full 
moon,  which,  as  they  emerged  from  the  primitive  barbarism  of 
their  ancestors,  became  connected  in  their  observance  with  a 
number  of  religious  rites  and  ceremonies.''  Stow  apparently 
possessed  an  acquaintance  with  these  rapidly  disappearing 
people  such  as  no  one  else  has  ever  gained,  and  his  description 
of  their  customs,  as  well  as  his  comment  thereon,  are  the  more 
interesting.  His  remarks  upon  the  moonlight  dances  are 
entirely  in  line  with  the  theory  of  primitive  religion  here 
presented.  We  should  say,  however,  that  such  purely  playful 
dancing  became  not  merely  connected  with  religious  rites  and 
ceremonies,  but  that  it  itself  became  religious  ceremonial,  and 
in  a  measure  helped  to  develop  the  religious  consciousness. 
There  were  other  times  of  interest  to  the  Bushmen,  such  as 
the  approach  of  the  first  thunder-storm  of  the  season,  when 
they  were  particularly  joyful  because  it  was  a  token  of  the 
commencement  of  summer.  *'In  the  midst  of  their  excessive 
rejoicing  they  tore  in  pieces  their  skin  coverings,  threw  them 
into  the  air,  and  danced  for  several  nights  in  succession.  Some 
tribes  made  great  outcries,  accompanied  with  dancing  and 
playing  upon  their  drums."  As  the  season  advanced,  some 
of  the  terrific  storms  aroused  their  dread, and  "among  some  of 
the  tribes  this  culminated  in  fits  of  impotent  rage,  as  if  the  war 
of  elements  excited  their  indignation  against  the  mysterious 
power  which  they  supposed  was  the  cause  of  it."  Here,  again, 
is  a  situation  which  would  furnish  a  basis  for  developing  some 
aspect  of  the  religious  attitude.  The  emotions  and  acts 
aroused  by  great  storms  would  become  associated  in  the 


THE   ORIGIN  OF  RELIGIOUS   PRACTICES         iii 

minds  of  the  people  with  these  phenomena,  and  eventually 
s)nnbolize  their  human  value  or  significance.  Such  spontane- 
ous acts  of  terror  could  become  in  time  the  ritual  by  which  a 
storm  deity  would  be  appeased  or  invoked. 

Many  of  the  Bushmen  dances  were,  in  a  way,  games,  and 
required  of  their  performers  considerable  skill,  some  of  which 
were  for  women  and  others  for  men.  They  had  competi- 
tive dances  of  a  stated  character  for  the  women,  and  a  dance 
for  men  who  were  distinguished  for  their  manly  qualities. 
There  was  also  a  hunting  dance  with  bows  and  arrows,  and 
in  the  case  of  others  the  participants  were  disguised  as  ani- 
mals, and  took  the  greatest  delight  in  imitating  the  noises  and 
movements  of  those  which  were  well  known  to  them.  Thus, 
there  was  a  baboon,  a  frog,  and  a  bee  dance.  Some  of  these 
had  more  or  less  religious  or  at  least  mythological  significance, 
but  their  merely  play  value  is  so  evident  that  we  can  scarcely 
avoid  the  belief  that  they  grew  directly  out  of  an  impulse  to 
imitate  the  drolleries  or  striking  peculiarities  of  these  animals. 
We  gradually  pass  from  these  activities,  in  which  the  sportive 
element  seems  to  predominate,  to  others  of  a  more  religious 
character.  Thus,  there  were  dances  for  those  who  were  to 
^be  initiated,  also  national,  various  phallic,  and  blood  dances. 
There  was  certainly  no  sharply  dividing  line  between  the 
religious  and  the  non-religious  in  these  cases.  In  all,  the 
social  and  play  elements  were  prominent.  Their  fondness 
for  this  diversion  as  mere  sport  suggests  that  their  ceremonial 
dances  were  specializations  from  a  perfectly  spontaneous 
manifestation  of  primitive  joyousness,  which  still  persisted 
as  a  sort  of  background  or  matrix  for  their  truly  ceremonial 
activities,  and  served  to  keep  alive  the  spirit  expressed  in 
them.  In  short,  the  great  significance  of  the  Bushmen  in  this 
connection  is  that  their  dancing  had  not  entirely  lost  its  purely 
play  value,  and  continued  to  exist,  on  the  whole,  as  a  much 


112  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

more  general  form  of  activity  than  can  be  accounted  for  on  the 
basis  of  religious  ceremonial  alone.  They  danced,  in  the  first 
place,  because  they  were  glad  for  the  light,  because  they  were 
refreshed  by  the  coolness  of  the  nights,  or  because  of  an  abun- 
dance of  food  after  times  of  scarcity.  Among  other  primitive 
peoples  these  same  activities  came,  in  many  instances,  to 
express  to  their  doers  some  sort  of  ultimate  worthfulness. 
That  is,  the  meaning  of  their  lives,  as  far  as  they  were  able  to 
conceive  it,  was  in  some  way  bound  up  with  the  moon,  with 
the  sun,  with  certain  natural  phenomena  such  as  storms,  or 
with  food  itself;  and  as  a  consequence,  the  activities,  which 
had  gradually  crystallized  about  these  intense  centres  of  inter- 
est, since  they  were  literally  the  expression  of  the  relation  of 
the  people  to  these  things  and  were  the  only  means  by  which 
they  could  think  of  that  relation  —  these  activities,  we  repeat, 
became  religious  ceremonials  in  the  true  sense.  We  insist 
that  only  that  can  be  considered  of  value  which  either  poten- 
tially or  actually  does  excite  some  sort  of  reaction  in  the  person 
recognizing  the  value  and  that  the  value  is,  of  necessity,  con- 
ceived in  terms  of  this  active  relationship.  Aside  from  such 
relations,  a  value  cannot  be  stated  or  even  conceived.  The 
whole  case  is  tersely  summarized  by  Stow  in  these  words :  — 

"From  this  [i.e.  the  preceding  description]  we  seem  to  learn 
something  of  the  primitive  ideas,  which  became  more  and 
y^  more  elaborated,  until  dancing  was  looked  upon  as  a  religious 
ceremony." 

Another  excellent  example  of  the  transformation  of  a  prac- 
tical act  into  one  having  religious  significance  is  furnished  by 
the  Japanese  and  their  customs  relating  to  uncleanness.  In 
Shinto  actual  personal  dirt  is  worse  than  moral  guilt.  To 
be  dirty  is  to  be  disrespectful  to  the  gods.*    It  seems  to  the 

*  Aston,  Shinto,  the  Way  of  the  Gods. 


THE   ORIGIN   OF   RELIGIOUS   PRACTICES         113 

present  writer  that  we  have  here  a  purely  social  habit  become 
a  genuinely  religious  act;  in  other  words,  that  the  habit  of 
cleanliness  has  become  so  thoroughly  ingrained  into  Japanese 
character  that  it  is  now  conceived  as  a  religious  duty.  What 
the  exact  social  conditions  were  that  made  them  hold  the  need 
of  cleanliness  so  constantly  and  vividly  in  attention,  we  prob- 
ably can  never  fully  determine;  but,  from  all  we  know  of 
primitive  religion,  it  seems,  as  we  have  said,  that  it  is  a  case  of 
social  habit  acquiring  religious  value,  rather  than  a  habit  en- 
joined by  a  preexisting  conception  of  religious  propriety.  In 
the  case  of  this  habit  the  practical  connection  with  the  decent 
conduct  of  life  seems  quite  evident,  but  in  the  case  of  many 
religious  duties  (we  speak  generally,  not  of  the  Japanese  in 
particular),  and  especially  in  the  case  of  such  complicated  ones 
as  ceremonials,  the  primitive  relation  which  probably  existed 
between  them  and  the  ordinary  activities  of  the  group  is  lost. 
It  is  easy  to  see  how,  on  purely  psychological  grounds,  that 
which  has  lost  its  direct  connection  with  life  may  persist  ac- 
cording to  the  law  of  habit.  When  this  is  the  case,  it  is  natural 
to  refer  the  practice  back  to  whatever  conceptions  seem  to  the 
people  to  be  ultimate,  that  is,  least  susceptible  of  analysis. 
Every  individual  and  every  people  possess  a  more  or  less  defi- 
nite substratum  of  axioms  or  postulates  beyond  which  they 
do  not  attempt  to  go.  (This  is,  of  course,  itself  one  of  the 
subtle  results  of  what  may  be  called  our  habit-forming  capac- 
ity and  need  not  here  be  further  discussed.)  The  North 
American  Indians  refer  many  of  their  customs  to  their  culture- 
heroes  ;  the  Israelites  believed  that  all  their  religious  rites  were 
instituted  by  Moses ;  the  Central  Australians  regard  the  state- 
ment, 'It  was  so  in  the  Alcheringa'  [i.e.  among  their  half- 
human  ancestors],  as  entirely  final;  the  Todas,  similarly, 
explain,  ultimately,  nearly  all  their  ceremonies  and  customs 
by  saying  that  they  were  so  ordained  by  their  chief  deity, 


114  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

Teikirzi.'  For  precisely  the  same  psychological  reasons  one 
of  us  may  account  for  the  evil  in  an  act  by  saying  that  it  is 
prohibited  by  one  of  the  Ten  Commandments,  or  is  not  in 
accord  with  the  spirit  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  or  we  may 
use  as  our  ultimate  postulate  the  moral  imperative,  the  Good, 
or  the  Good-will,  while,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  in  every  case,  the 
act,  in  so  far  as  it  is  not  the  outcome  of  reflective  morality, 
had  originally  some  definite  social  context  in  which  it  had 
either  practical  value,  or  was  related  to  some  of  the  acces- 
sory activities  of  a  social  group.  Of  course,  true  reflective 
morality  simply  recognizes  the  social  criterion  as  the  really 
ultimate  one,  and  attempts  actively  to  reconstruct  conduct 
on  this  basis  instead  of  leaving  it  to  the  slow  action  of  uncon- 
scious selection. 

Referring  again  to  Shinto,  it  is  interesting  to  note  that  it 
furnishes  a  type  of  illustration  analogous  to  that  of  the  Bush- 
men. There  seem  to  be  all  gradations  of  Shinto  festivals, 
from  the  purely  social  to  the  clearly  religious,  but  in  all  the 
note  of  social  enjoyment  is  quite  easily  detected.^  Some  of 
them  seem  to  be  little  more  than  special  occasions  when  people 
call  upon  their  friends  for  the  exchange  greetings  of  good-will. 

Thus,  Kaempfer,  writing  in  the  year  1690,  says:  "Perhaps 
[Shinto]  would  not  have  stood  its  ground  so  long  had  it  not  been 
for  its  close  connection  with  civil  customs,  in  the  observation  of 
which  this  nation  is  exceedingly  nice  and  scrupulous."  ^  "It 
is  observable,  in  general,  that  their  festivals  and  holidays  are 
days  sacred  rather  to  mutual  compliments  and  civilities  than 
to  acts  of  holiness  and  devotion.  Another  name  for  them  is 
visiting  days, "  *    The  same  observer  says  of  their  monthly 

^  W.  H.  R.  Rivers,  The  Todas,  p.  186. 

'  See  E.  Kaempfer,  History  ofJapaity  1690-1692,  Glasgow,  1906,  Vol.  II, 
and  Aston,  Shinto. 

'  Kaempfer,  op.  cit.,  p.  7. 
*  Ibid.,  p.  21.     Italics  ours. 


THE  ORIGIN   OF   RELIGIOUS   PRACTICES         115 

and  yearly  festivals  that  they  are  little  more  than  times  of 
social  rejoicing ;  that  New  Year's  Day,  the  most  solemn  of  all 
their  festival  seasons,  was  then  spent  in  visiting  and  compli- 
menting each  other.  Aston  says  that  Shinto  is  a  reflection 
of  the  dominant  mood  of  a  sociable,  enjoyment-loving  race. 
So  essentially  is  it  a  religion  of  gratitude  and  love  that  the 
demons  of  disease  and  calamity  are  mostly  obscure  and  name- 
less. In  other  words,  we  may  say  that  the  pleasures  of  social 
intercourse  have  become  so  much  a  matter  of  attention,  and 
have  furnished  such  an  all-important  nucleus  for  habit  and 
custom,  that  it  has  come  to  be,  or  to  express,  to  the  Japanese 
the  very  centre  and  meaning  of  life.  As  we  have  already 
held,  when  this  stage  is  reached,  the  habits  and  customs, 
in  terms  of  which  alone  this  value  can  be  thought,  become 
true  religious  ceremonials.  An  excellent  illustration  of  a 
social  act  transformed  into  a  religious  rite  appears  in  the 
festival  of  Nifu  Moojin  in  Kii.  When  the  procession  bear- 
ing offerings  arrives  before  the  shrine,  the  village  chief  calls 
out  in  a  loud  voice,  "According  to  our  annual  custom,  let  us 
laugh."  ' 

Our  general  point  finds  further  exemplification  in  Shinto 
offerings.  The  earliest  of  these  were  portions  of  the  ordinary 
meal  set  apart  in  grateful  recognition  of  the  source  from  which 
it  came.  "The  primary  and  most  important  form  of  offering 
is  food  and  drink."  ^  Religious  expression  in  the  form  of 
sacrifice  would  seem  also  to  be  the  outgrowth  of  the  ordinary 
activities  of  this  naturally  sociable  people.  The  giving  of 
food  and  drink,  or  other  articles,  would  be  originally  a  natu- 

^  Aston,  op.  cit.,  p.  6. 

^  Ibid.,  pp.  211  flF.  Aston  does  not  believe,  as  far  as  Shinto  is  concerned, 
that  the  core  of  worship  is  communion.  Communion,  as  he  says,  is  out  of  the 
question  when  the  offering  is  of  implements  or  of  clothing.  Even  in  the  case 
of  food,  there  is,  in  Shinto,  no  evidence  of  a  joint  participation  in  the  living 
flesh  and  blood  of  a  sacred  victim.     Op.  cit.,  p.  211. 


Ii6  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

ral  expression  of  social  regard  and,  when  customs  generally 
became  in  a  measure  religious  ceremonies,  this  particular 
aspect  of  social  regard  would  also  have  its  place  as  one  phase 
of  religious  expression.  The  offering  of  food,  drink,  and 
clothing  would  symbolize  most  vividly  to  them  certain  elements 
of  their  appreciative  attitude  toward  that  social  'concept* 
which  seemed  to  express  most  fully  to  them  the  meaning  of 
their  lives.  The  later  forms  of  Shinto  sacrifice,  of  which  some 
are  expiatory,  some  rewards  for  services,  some  given  to  close 
bargains  for  future  benefits,  and  some  propitiatory,  are  also 
closely  analogous  to,  if  not  the  direct  outcome  of,  acts  which 
would  easily  arise  within  a  social  group.  Such  offerings  rest 
at  least  upon  the  assumption  that  the  spirit  world  is  more  or 
less  continuous  with  the  social  milieu  of  the  worshipper,  and 
that  it  consequently  requires  the  same  sort  of  conduct  as  is 
required  within  the  visible  social  body.  We  are  predisposed 
to  think,  however,  that  these  sacrificial  acts  are  the  actual 
remnants  of  reactions  to  concrete  social  problems,  the  exact 
nature  of  which  has  long  been  lost,  although  their  general 
character  is  quite  evident.  In  that  case  they  would  directly 
illustrate  our  point  that  religious  ceremonies  are  in  many 
cases,  if  not  in  all,  due  to  the  persistence  in  the  social  body 
of  various  practical  and  play  activities  which  have  accumu- 
lated about  its  most  absorbing  objects  of  attention. 

A  social  activity  connected  with  a  time  of  some  tension 
or  excitement  is  the  Kafir  custom  reported  by  McDonald. 
When  a  thunder-storm  is  seen  approaching,  the  whole  village, 
led  by  the  medicine-man,  will  rush  to  the  nearest  hill  and 
yell  at  the  hurricane  to  divert  it  from  its  course.*  Here  is  the 
sort  of  activity  which  might,  and  in  all  probability  does,  fur- 
nish the  starting-point  for  a  religious  ceremony  in  the  wor- 
ship of  a  storm-god  or  other  natural  phenomenon. 

*  Journal  of  the  A  nthropological  Institute,  Vol.  XIX,  p.  283. 


THE   ORIGIN   OF   RELIGIOUS   PRACTICES         117 

Stow  says  of  the  Bushmen's  custom  of  placing  stones  upon 
the  graves  of  the  dead,  that  it  might  originally  have  been 
adopted  to  prevent  wild  beasts  from  getting  at  the  bodies,  and 
that  it  was  finally  regarded  as  demanded  by  the  spirit  of  the 
deceased,  thus  becoming  an  imperative  duty  for  the  passer-by 
to  add  to  the  pile,  as  this  secured  to  him  and  his  family  the 
favor  of  the  spirit.^  Here,  again,  is  a  custom  well  on  the  way 
toward  a  religious  rite  in  the  worship  of  the  dead,  or,  if  the 
dead  should  be  forgotten,  a  ritual  connected  with  a  sacred 
place.  The  development  of  the  idea  that  the  spirit  required 
this  service  would  come  quite  naturally  when,  for  any  cause, 
the  original  necessity  was  less  keenly  felt,  and,  even  if  they 
remained  fully  conscious  of  its  relation  to  wild  beasts,  it  would 
be  easy  for  the  idea  to  arise  that  the  spirit  demanded  the  rite. 

A  case  similar  to  the  preceding  ones  is  that  of  the  naming  of 
the  chief's  son  among  the  Kayans,  when  the  whole  village  is 
called  together  for  what  is  ostensibly  a  religious  rite,  and  inci- 
dentally a  season  of  merrymaking.^ 

The  transformation  of  practical  acts  into  religious  ones 
through  the  medium  of  habit  has  no  more  striking  illustration 
than  that  furnished  by  the  Todas  with  their  dairy  religion.* 
What  the  original  Toda  religion  was  we  cannot  determine 
with  certainty.  They  have  now  somewhat  vague  beliefs 
regarding  certain  deities,  beliefs  which  were  quite  possibly 
at  some  time  in  the  past  much  more  definite.  This  condition 
probably  existed  before  they  came  to  their  present  country  in 
the  Nilgiri  Hills  of  southern  India.  The  significance  of  the 
changes  which  have  probably  taken  place  in  Toda  religion  we 
shall  take  up  in  connection  with  the  general  problem  of  the 

^  Stow,  op.  cit.y  p.  127. 

^  Furness,  The  Head  Hunters,  p.  18. 

'  The  great  wealth  of  material  regarding  Toda  religion  and  social  organiza- 
tion made  available  by  W.  H.  R.  Rivers's  recent  work,  The  Todas,  is  sufl5cient 
excuse  for  the  extended  references  we  shall  make  to  this  unique  people. 


Ii8  DEVELOPMENT   OF   RELIGION 

evolution  of  religion.  It  is  sufficient  here  to  note  that  most 
of  the  attention  of  the  Todas  has  in  some  way  been  diverted 
from  their  older  belief,  and  has  come  to  be  centred  upon  the 
care  of  their  buffaloes.  It  is  not  strange  that  this  is  the  case, 
since  their  subsistence  is  almost  entirely  gained  from  these 
animals.  They  have,  it  is  true,  an  annual  ceremony  for  in- 
creasing'the  supply  of  honey  and  fruit,  indicating  that  at  some 
period  they  must  have  been  considerably  dependent  upon 
these  things.  Since,  however,  these  are  not  any  longer  im- 
portant articles  of  food  to  the  Todas,  very  little  interest  is 
taken  in  the  ceremony.* 

Whether  their  religion  is  rudimentary,  as  some  hold,  or 
rather  degenerate,  as  Rivers  thinks,  there  is  no  question  that 
at  present  they  are  absorbingly  interested  in  their  buffaloes. 
The  buffalo  is  a  sacred  animal,  though  not  worshipped.  The 
most  sacred  places  are  certain  of  their  dairies ;  their  most  sa- 
cred objects  are  the  utensils  of  the  sacred  dairies,  and  particu- 
larly the  bells  worn  by  the  buffaloes.  The  dairy  building  is 
the  nearest  approach  to  a  temple,  and  the  dairyman  is  practi- 
cally a  priest.  He  can  enter  upon  his  duties  only  after  certain 
ordination  ceremonies,  varying  with  the  sanctity  of  the  dairy 
in  which  he  is  to  minister.  During  the  period  of  his  service 
he  must  observe  as  strict  rules  to  maintain  his  ceremonial 
cleanliness  as  does  many  a  real  priest  of  a  higher  cult.  In 
fact,  they  have  few  religious  acts  entirely  divorced  from  their 
practical  interest  in  the  care  of  the  buffalo  and  the  securing  of 
milk,  i.e,  they  have  no  idols,  images,  no  sacred  objects  apart 
from  the  dairy,  no  dreaded  supernatural  beings  to  be  appeased, 
and  no  sacrifices  beyond  eating  a  little  buffalo  meat  at  stated 
intervals,  or  drinking  fresh  milk  on  certain  occasions.  Al- 
though they  owe  no  duties  to  a  deity,  "yet,"  as  Marshall  says,^ 

*  Rivers,  p.  290. 

'  Marshall,  A  Phrenologist  among  the  Todas,  1873,  p.  129. 


THE   ORIGIN  OF  RELIGIOUS   PRACTICES  119 

''they  hold  to  certain  practices  and  habits  in  daily  life,  which 
are  to  them  in  the  place  of  religion,  being  performed  with  all 
the  strictness  and  certainty  which  should  be  bestowed  on 
sacred  observances."  These  practices  are  intimately  allied 
with  the  care  and  distribution  of  that  divine  fluid,  milk.  As 
Rivers  says,  "In  the  Toda  rites  and  ceremonies  is  little  else 
than  the  arrangements  which  a  pastoral  and  communistic 
people  have  made  for  the  provision  and  care  of  an  article  of 
food."  ' 

In  general,  then,  it  seems  that  we  have  in  the  Todas  a 
unique  illustration  of  how  the  habits  of  a  group  of  people, 
habits  which  have  originated  in  some  practical  interest,  may 
become  of  such  great  importance  that  they  are  true  religious 
ceremonies.  Moreover,  if  our  principles  of  interpretation 
are  true,  these  very  habits  have  served  to  enhance  the  value, 
the  sanctity,  of  the  object  about  which  they  have  gathered, 
if  they  have  not  actually  produced  it.  We  believe  the  Todas 
illustrate  these  points,  even  though  there  are  some  of  their 
buffaloes  which  are  not  sacred,  or  rather  some  of  the  dairies 
are  not  sacred  (for  the  sanctity  of  the  buffalo  seems  to  depend 
at  present  upon  its  being  connected  with  a  sacred  dairy),  and 
even  though  there  are  all  degrees  of  sanctity  in  these  various 
things.  The  initial  causes  of  these  valuations  we  may  never 
be  able  to  determine,  but  at  least  we  do  know  that  sanctity, 
as  far  as  it  is  recognized  by  them  at  all,  is  definitely  related  to 
their  dominant  economic  pursuit. 

If  we  were  to  analyze  the  development  of  the  present  reli- 
gious ideas  of  the  Todas  and  the  relation  of  these  ideas  to 
their  everyday  life,  we  believe  that  the  following  hypotheses 
would  be  fully  in  accord  with  the  facts  as  at  present  observed. 
In  the  first  place,  it  is  evident  that  their  current  religious  system 
is  not  their  original  one,  for  they  have  vague  beliefs  in  a  body 

^  Ibid.,  pp.  130,  186. 


120  DEVELOPMENT  OF  RELIGION 

of  deities  which  have  probably  come  down  to  them  from  a  time 
when  their  life  was  quite  different  from  what  it  now  is.  These 
gods  seem  to  be  becoming  less  and  less  important;  they  are 
stranded,  as  it  were,  in  a  new  social  order. ^  The  only  deity 
who  has  retained  any  considerable  importance  is  Teikirzi, 
the  one  to  whom  they  trace  most  of  their  dairy  ceremonials. 
Some  of  the  other  deities  are  supposed  to  have  lived  upon  the 
earth  and  to  have  been  dairymen.  That  is,  the  Todas'  most 
definite  ideas  regarding  their  gods  are  those  concerning  their 
relationship  to  the  social  order  under  which  the  people  now 
live.  In  so  far  as  they  have  been  able  to  throw  the  old  gods 
into  relation  with  their  new  conditions  of  life,  they  have  kept 
them  fairly  definite,  but  even  thus,  they  seem  to  be  little  more 
than  intellectual  concepts,  or  postulates,  certainly  not  objects 
of  worship.  The  real  object  of  the  Todas'  valuational  con- 
sciousness is  the  milk  and  the  dairy.  It  is  uncertain  whether 
the  milk  or  the  buffalo  was  the  original  object  of  their  sacred 
regard,  but  that  is  not  here  a  matter  of  great  importance,  since 
we  wish  simply  to  show  how  one  of  their  objects  of  reverential 
regard  assumed  its  present  importance.  If  the  buffalo  were 
first  regarded  as  sacred,  it  is  natural  that  the  fluid  given  by 
the  buffalo  would  acquire  by  association  a  like  value.  But  its 
sacredness  would  be  greatly  enhanced  if  it  came  to  be  the 
chief  source  of  their  livelihood.  This  would  make  it  an  object 
of  solicitous  attention,  and  every  act  connected  with  the  pro- 
curing and  care  of  it  would  likewise  become  an  object  of  in- 
terest. If,  for  any  other  reason,  the  killing  of  the  female  buffalo 
had  been  tabooed,  their  hesitation  at  doing  such  a  thing  would 
now  be  much  increased  by  the  fact  of  their  dependence  upon 

*  "  I  think  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  most  of  the  individual  gods  of  the 
Todas  are  becoming  very  unreal  beings  to  those  who  talk  of  them.  The  stories 
of  the  earlier  gods  are  now  forgotten,  and  the  ideas  of  the  Todas  about  them 
are  very  vague."     Rivers,  op.  cit.,  pp.  451  f. 


THE   ORIGIN   OF   RELIGIOUS   PRACTICES         I2I 

the  buffalo's  milk.  Granted,  then,  that  the  milk  becomes  a 
matter  of  great  moment  to  them  because  of  its  economic  im- 
portance, it  is  easy  to  see  how  its  value  could  be  indefinitely 
increased  by  the  habits  arising  in  the  care  of  it.  Only  let  the 
idea  arise  that  a  certain  thing  has  great  worth,  and  secondary 
processes  will  be  set  up  which  will  make  the  value  greater  than 
ever.  That  is,  when  the  worth  of  an  object  is  once  established 
by  its  relation  to  a  group's  practical  and  social  life,  it  thereby 
gains  enough  internal  momentum  to  go  on  increasing,  in 
relative  independence  of  practical  and  social  interests.  This 
is  certainly  true  regarding  milk  among  the  Todas.  When  this 
article  of  food  acquires  considerable  value,  both  because  of  its 
practical  importance  and  because  of  the  primary  adjustments 
necessitated  in  caring  for  it,  situations  repeatedly  arise  which 
necessitate  secondary  adjustments  in  order  that  due  regard 
may  be  shown  to  this  preexisting  sanctity,  or  in  order  that  it 
may  be  preserved  intact  in  the  new  relations,  or  that  no  injury 
may  come  to  its  possessors  when  its  sanctity  is  in  a  way 
violated,  as,  for  instance,  when  it  is  removed  from  its  ac- 
customed environment.  These  secondary  processes,  designed 
to  preserve  the  value,  not  only  accomplish  that  end,  but  even 
greatly  enhance  it. 

Thus,  much  of  the  dairy  ritual  has  grown  up  as  a  means  of 
counteracting  the  danger  involved  in  giving  the  sacred  sub- 
stance, milk,  to  peoples  whom  they  regard  as  inferior  beings. 
*'  Similarly,  the  migration  ceremonies  have  the  general  under- 
lying idea  of  counteracting  any  possible  evil  influence  which 
may  accompany  the  passage  of  the  buffaloes  through  the 
profane  world  from  one  sacred  place  to  another.  During  the 
migration,  certain  utensils  may  be  seen  by  the  multitude  which, 
under  ordinary  circumstances,  are  strictly  screened  from  the 
general  gaze,  and  objects  may  be  touched,  or  be  in  danger  of 
being  touched,  by  people  who  ordinarily  may  not  even  see 


122  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

them.  Again,  the  ceremonies  connected  with  entrance  upon 
any  dairy  office  are  intended  to  purify  the  candidate  and  make 
him  fit  to  see  and  touch  and  use  the  sacred  objects."  ^  These 
are  all  the  crude  attempts  of  a  primitive  people  to  effect  what 
is,  for  them,  a  very  practical  end,  and  the  'secondary  processes,' 
as  we  have  called  them,  aroused  by  the  social  interest  in  the 
object,  serve  to  increase  that  interest,  and  hence  to  enhance  the 
value  of  the  object  itself. 

The  Todas  have  other  ceremonies  which  are  directly  con- 
nected with  seasons  of  stress  or  of  emotional  tension.  They 
are  distinctly  social  in  character,  and  they  may  thus  be  sup- 
posed to  be  the  outcome  of  these  psychological  conditions 
rather  than  to  have  been  caused  by  any  original  religious 
motive.  Among  these  may  be  mentioned  the  Irpalvusthi 
ceremony,  which  occurs  about  the  fifteenth  day  after  the  birth 
of  a  calf.  It  strongly  resembles  a  sacrificial  or  thanksgiving 
feast;  the  dairyman  performs  elaborate  ceremonies  in  con- 
nection with  the  calf  and  its  mother;  the  people  assemble 
in  large  numbers  and  partake  of  the  fresh  milk  of  the  buffalo, 
a  thing  not  done  on  any  other  occasion.  From  this  time  the 
calf  is  allowed  to  run  with  the  others,  and  the  buffalo  is  milked 
with  the  rest  of  the  herd.  This  festival,  in  which  the  people 
partake  of  the  milk  of  a  sacred  animal,  bears  an  interesting 
analogy  to  sacrificial  feasts  of  some  other  peoples,  in  which 
the  sacred  animal  itself  is  consumed.^ 

The  giving  of  salt  to  the  buffaloes  occurs  at  stated  intervals, 
and  is  accompanied  with  a  definite  ceremonial.  Rivers  thinks 
it  points  to  a  time  when  salt  was  difficult  to  obtain.^  If  this 
were  ever  the  case,  the  giving  of  salt  would  naturally  have 
been  an  event  of  some  importance,  and  would  easily  serve  as 
a  centre  about  which  habits  would  cluster.    Certain  of  the 

'  Rivers,  op.  cit.^  p.  231.  '  Op.  cit.,  pp.  172-175,  also  p.  241. 

3  Op.  cit.,  pp.  175,  232. 


THE   ORIGIN  OF   RELIGIOUS   PRACTICES         123 

Toda  sacrifices  can  be  rather  clearly  traced  back  to  some  sort 
of  purely  practical  social  custom.  In  certain  Toda  clans  the 
offering  of  a  buffalo  as  an  atonement  for  some  sin  is  made 
from  one  division  of  the  clan  to  another.  "It  seems  that  we 
have  in  these  offerings  a  good  example  of  something  which  is 
midway  between  a  social  regulation  of  the  nature  of  punish- 
ment and  a  definite  religious  rite  of  propitiation  of  higher 
powers."  ^  This  seems  the  more  likely  in  view  of  the  fact  that 
there  are  some  other  types  of  offerings,  closely  related  to  the 
foregoing,  and,  in  fact,  designated  by  the  same  name,  in  which 
the  religious  and  sacrificial  character  is  quite  clear.  That 
is,  the  buffalo,  instead  of  being  given  to  another  division  of  the 
clan,  is  given  to  a  ti,  the  most  sacred  type  of  Toda  dairy.  The 
animal  is  not  killed,  but  on  entering  the  sacred  herd  it  is 
devoted  to  the  service  of  the  gods.  If  the  clan  divisions  are 
primary,  Rivers  thinks  that  the  offering  made  to  the  ti  dairies 
may  be  an  example  of  what  was  originally  a  mere  social 
regulation  transformed  into  a  religious  rite.  That  is,  "  religious 
sanction  has  been  added  to  the  system  of  social  punishment, 
which  seems  to  be  all  which  clearly  exists  in  the  offerings, 
when  these  are  kept  within  the  clan."  ^ 

^  Ibid.,  p.  311. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  312.  The  author  thinks,  however,  that  it  may  be  possible  that 
the  Toda  religion  has  degenerated,  and  hence  that  the  whole  mechanism  of 
clan  divisions  (kudr)  "  is  a  device  by  which  offerings  which  should  be  made  to 
a  higher  power  may  remain  the  property  of  the  clan. 

"The  fact  that  the  giving  of  the  buflFalo  or  other  ofifering  is  accompanied 
by  prayer,  and  the  various  restrictions  of  a  more  or  less  religious  nature  which 
accompany  the  ceremonial,  show  that,  at  the  present  time,  the  ceremony  has 
in  all  cases  a  very  definite  religious  character;  but  it  is  quite  possible  to  regard 
these  features  in  two  ways,  either  as  accretions  to  a  system  of  social  punish- 
ment, or  as  vestiges  of  what  was  once  a  purely  religious  sacrifice  in  which  the 
offerings  were  given  to  the  gods"  (p.  312).  While  we  must  not  ignore  the  pos- 
sibility of  the  second  interpretation,  it  seems  scarcely  possible  that  an  offer- 
ing to  the  gods  should  deteriorate  into  just  such  a  form.  The  first  view 
seems  to  the  present  writer  far  the  more  plausible  of  the  two. 


124  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

It  is  very  significant  that  most  of  the  Toda  offering  cere- 
monies are  closed  by  feasts,  and  also  that  they  all  involve  pre- 
scribed activities  on  the  part  of  the  whole  clan/  The  offerings 
are  distinctly  clan  affairs ;  that  is,  they  are  social  ceremonies. 

It  is  impossible  to  separate  the  purely  '  practical '  from 
the  'accessory'  in  any  examination  of  the  origin  of  religious 
activities.  So  great  is  the  exuberance  of  human  impulse, 
that  accessory  activities  constantly  and  inevitably  cluster 
about  our  practical  adjustments,  often  resulting  in  a  union  so 
intimate  that  it  is  impossible,  even  in  ourselves,  to  separate 
them.  So,  in  all  the  activities  of  primitive  peoples,  we  find, 
intermingled  with  the  direct  responses  to  the  demands  of  the 
life-process,  multitudes  of  play  activities,  festivities  of  various 
kinds,  all  bearing  witness  to  the  fact  that  the  /z/e-process  is  a 
social  process,  and  that  after  its  most  insistent  demands  are 
in  a  measure  satisfied,  the  'activities  it  calls  forth  are  func- 
tionally valuable  not  merely  as  means  for  preserving  life,  but 
in  greater  and  greater  degree  as  means  of  social  intercourse. 

The  life  of  the  primitive  Semites,  as  reconstructed  by  W. 
Robertson  Smith  and  G.  A.  Barton,  is  very  pertinent  in  this 
connection.  Barton  brings  forward  much  evidence  to  prove 
that  their  religion  was  definitely  related  to  the  form  of  social 
organization  that  prevailed  among  them,  which,  in  turn,  can 
be  connected  in  many  ways  with  the  fundamental  problems 
of  the  life-process  as  they  came  to  consciousness  among  these 
peoples.  Many  of  their  religious  rites.  Barton  says,  spring 
out  of  the  prominence  among  them  *  of  the  mother  and  the 
institutions  of  maternal  kinship  ...  as  well  as  their  tendency 
to  unregulated  intercourse  and  the  important  functions  of  the 
date  palm.^  As  has  already  been  pointed  out,  the  gathering 
of  a  clan  on  an  oasis  to  harvest  the  dates  was  to  it  a  time  of 

*  Rivers,  op.  cit.,  p.  30a. 
'  Semitic  OriginSy  p.  82. 


THE   ORIGIN   OF   RELIGIOUS   PRACTICES         125 

great  importance,  necessitating  not  only  organization  for  the 
purpose  of  harvesting,  but  also  for  the  purpose  of  maintaining 
their  rights  to  the  oasis  against  the  encroachments  of  hostile 
clans.  The  very  act  of  gathering  the  dates  was  a  religious 
one.  Out  of  this  primitive  situation  grew  various  festivals 
and  sacrifices,  all  of  which  were  originally  connected  with 
practical  ends,  and  had  their  development,  no  doubt,  facili- 
tated by  the  fact  that  they  furnished  important  avenues  for 
social  intercourse. 

Here,  then,  are  a  whole  series  of  acts,  useful  from  the  Semitic 
point  of  view,  and  centring  about  the  objects  and  processes 
most  prominently  in  their  field  of  attention.  But  inasmuch 
as  they  are  acts  performed  by  a  social  group,  they  inevitably 
acquire  an  added  value,  namely,  as  media  of  social  inter- 
course. In  other  words,  the  fundamental  expedients  of  the 
life-process,  because  they  are  of  necessity  carried  on  by 
groups  of  people,  naturally  gain  many  accretions  from  these 
people's  social  and  play  impulses,  and  these  accretions  may 
become  of  almost  more  importance  than  the  fundamental 
acts  about  which  they  gather,  even  to  the  extent  of  obliterating 
them.  Thus,  among  the  Semites  of  historic  times  we  find  cir- 
cumcision festivals,  which,  while  partly  social  gatherings  and 
occasions  of  social  intercourse,  probably  grew  out  of  a  cycle 
of  activities,  including  the  sacrifice  of  sheep  and  the  dancing 
of  girls,  and  had  as  its  objective  point  the  more  adequate  con- 
trol of  the  principle  of  fertility,  especially  within  the  clan.  It 
was,  in  a  sense,  the  mating  period  of  the  group,  a  time  when 
the  young  men  chose  wives.  ^  The  religious  rite  of  the  Pass- 
over finally  emerged  as  a  generalized  and  reduced  form  of  the 
springtime  celebration  of  fertility,  which  was  not  altogether  a 
celebration  of  fertility  but  a  group  of  social  activities  necessary 
to  insure  the  permanence  of  the  clan.     Just  as  the  spring 

^  Barton,  op.  cit.,  p.  no. 


126  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

had  its  cycle  of  activities,  which  in  time  became  religious 
ceremonies,  so  did  the  periods  of  harvest.  Here  also  festi- 
vals of  a  religious  character  grew  out  of  the  primitive  customs 
connected  with  gathering  the  fruit  of  the  date  palm. 

We  should  bear  in  mind,  throughout  this  inquiry,  that  in 
every  religious  rite  there  are  two  elements  to  be  distinguished ; 
namely,  the  form  and  the  content.  The  first  element  is  de- 
termined by  the  structure  of  the  worshipping  body ;  that  is, 
it  is  one  of  the  acts  or  adjustments  of  that  body.  The  con- 
tent of  the  rite,  on  the  other  hand,  by  which  we  mean  the 
objects  with  which  it  is  concerned  and  toward  which  it  is 
directed,  is  determined  by  whatever  figures  most  prominently 
in  the  field  of  attention.  For  instance,  two  primitive  Semitic 
divinities,  Ishtar  and  Tammuz,  stood  for  certain  objective 
interests  of  these  peoples,  interests  which  depended  upon 
their  material  environment.  *' Ishtar  was  originally  a  water 
goddess,  the  divinity  of  some  never-failing  spring  or  springs, 
and  some  sacred  tree  to  which  the  spring  gave  life  represented 
her  son.  .  .  . "  ^  If  the  attention  of  the  Semitic  clans  had 
centred  about  other  objects,  the  content  of  their  worship 
would  have  been  different.  But  even  a  different  content 
could  be  approached  from  the  same  angle,  or  through  the  same 
social  machinery.  Both  the  'form'  and  the  'content'  stand 
for  values,  the  first  originating  in  the  reacting  organism,  the 
latter  in  the  environment  of  this  organism.  (This  holds  true, 
even  though  it  be  admitted  that  the  type  of  organism  is  itself 
ultimately  determined  by  the  natural  environment.)  Thus, 
phallic  worship  is  probably  immediately  due  to  the  type  of 
social  organization  itself,  while  the  particular  content  in  which 
it  finds  expression  will  depend  upon  the  objects  of  the  natural 
environment  which  are  prominently  thrust  upon  the  attention. 
Barton  holds  that  some  form  of  phallicism  underlies  early 

*  Barton,  op.  cit.,  p.  86. 


THE   ORIGIN  OF   RELIGIOUS  PRACTICES         127 

Semitic  religion.  This  particular  form  of  religion  we  at- 
tribute to  the  type  of  Semitic  social  organization,  while  the 
presence  in  attention  of  the  date  palm,  with  its  striking 
method  of  fertilization,  and  of  flocks  with  the  necessary  in- 
terest in  their  breeding,  furnished  a  'content'  of  a  particular 
kind  to  this  phallicism.  The  particular  environmental  in- 
terests furnished  the  specific  concepts  and  ceremonial  acts 
which  gave  body  to  their  fundamental  interest  in  the  repro- 
ductive functions.  In  general,  then,  it  may  be  important  to 
bear  in  mind  these  two  classes  of  factors  when  we  attempt  to 
interpret  the  religious  practices  and  beliefs  of  certain  groups. 
At  any  given  time,  the  religious  activities  of  a  people  are 
not  determined  alone  by  the  stimuli  of  the  social  and  phys- 
ical environment,  but  are  determined  as  well  by  the  specific 
character  of  the  reacting  organism  itself.  It  is  the  incom- 
pleteness of  our  information  regarding  primitive  religion  and 
primitive  social  organization  that  renders  it  difficult  to  go 
very  far  in  such  an  analysis  of  elements. 

That  the  religious  is  secondary  to  a  social  process  of  some 
sort  originating  in  some  other  than  a  religious  need,  but  be- 
coming the  ground  for  the  development  of  the  religious  as 
such,  finds  further  illustration  in  such  instances  as  the  fol- 
lowing: In  the  first  place  may  be  mentioned  many  of  the 
elaborate  ceremonials  of  certain  North  American  Indian 
tribes,  for  example,  the  Snake  Dance  of  the  Moqui  and  the 
Mountain  Chant  of  the  Navaho.  The  latter  consists  of  a 
great  cycle  of  activities  which  are  undoubtedly  of  a  religious 
character.  That  they  originated,  however,  in  a  practical 
problem  and  have  been  perpetuated  and  developed  because 
they  were  important  avenues  of  social  intercourse  and  rec- 
reation seems  highly  probable.  Their  ostensible  object  is 
to  cure  disease  in  some  member  of  the  tribe  who  asks  to  have 
the  ceremony  performed  and  bears  the  expenses  incident  to  it. 


128  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

The  cure  is  effected  in  connection  with  the  dramatic  rehearsal 
of  a  complicated  myth  regarding  the  migrations  of  a  family, 
the  escape  of  a  son  from  the  hostile  Ute,  his  protection  and 
succor  by  various  gods  and  animals  until  he  reaches  his  kin- 
dred. It  seems  to  us  immaterial,  as  far  as  our  present  problem 
is  concerned,  whether  we  regard  this  myth  as  explanatory  of 
the  rites  of  the  ceremony,  or  whether  the  rites  are  dramatiza- 
tions of  a  preexisting  myth.  Whichever  is  primary,  each 
has  without  doubt  reacted  upon  the  other.  The  signifi- 
cant points,  to  which  we  would  here  call  attention,  are  these : 
Although  the  ostensible  purpose  is  to  cure  disease  in  an  in- 
dividual, it  is  also  the  occasion  for  invoking  the  unseen  powers 
in  behalf  of  the  people  at  large  for  various  purposes,  such  as 
good  crops  and  abundant  rains.  The  rehearsal  of  this  myth 
occupies  more  or  less  the  whole  group  for  nine  days;  it  has 
its  stated  season,  the  winter-time,  when  the  thunder  is  silent 
and  the  rattlesnakes  are  hibernating.  In  this  respect,  and 
also  in  the  minute  observance  of  detail  it  involves,  as  well  as 
in  the  more  obvious  intent  of  the  ceremony  to  please  the  gods 
or  obtain  favors  of  them,  it  is  clear  that  the  whole  cycle  is 
religious.  It  is  also  equally  full  of  the  dramatic  and  play 
spirit,  and  the  merely  social  function  is  extremely  obvious. 
It  is  an  occasion  when  the  people  gather  to  have  a  jolly  time.^ 
Do  we  not  have  here  a  series  of  ceremonies  which  are  prima- 
rily expressions  of  the  social  and  play  impulses  and  second- 
arily religious? 

The  Snake  Dance  of  the  Moqui  seems  to  be  an  illus- 
tration of  the  same  point.  Its  object  is  to  insure  abundant 
rains  for  the  following  season,  while  the  social  and  dramatic 
element  is  also  very  marked.  It  seems  possible  to  say  that  it 
too  was  first  of  all  an  adjustment  to  a  practical  problem,  and 

*  Washington  Matthews,  "The  Mountain  Chant  of  the  Navaho,"  Fifth 
Annual  Report  of  the  Bureau  of  Ethnology,  pp.  386  f. 


THE   ORIGIN  OF   RELIGIOUS  PRACTICES         129 

that  it  furnished  a  nucleus  for  a  large  number  of  accessory 
activities  from  which  the  religious  values  have  developed.* 

As  Jevons  says  ^  in  another  connection,  "  Ceremonies  which 
were  used  for  the  purpose  of  rainmaking  [i.e.,  purely  practical 
expedients]  before  rain  was  recognized  as  the  gift  of  the  gods, 
[may]  continue  for  a  time  to  be  practised  as  the  proper  rites 
with  which  to  approach  the  god  of  the  commimity  or  the  rain 
god  in  particular. "  This  significant  statement  of  Jevons  we 
should  be  inclined  to  generalize  and  apply  to  all  sorts  of  activ- 
ities occurring  within  the  social  group.  Thus,  may  we  not 
with  reason  suppose  that  the  elaborate  ceremonies  and  regu- 
lations observed  by  the  coast  tribes  of  British  Columbia,' 
with  reference  to  the  first  salmon  of  the  season,  were  primarily 
practical  expedients,  —  as  they  saw  it,  —  intermingled  with  a 
certain  amount  of  playfulness,  the  whole  object  of  which  was 
to  insure  a  good  catch  ?  If  they  had  developed  a  definite  deity 
or  a  salmon-god,  these  expedients  would  have  become  quite 
naturally  a  part  of  his  ritual. 

It  is  in  the  primitive  religion  of  the  Romans,  however,  that 
some  of  the  most  striking  illustrations  may  be  found  of  this 
relation  of  religious  ceremonial  to  antecedent  *  practical* 
and  '  accessory '  activities.  The  popular  mind  is  so  possessed 
with  the  idea  that  Roman  religion  was  merely  a  duplicate  of 
that  of  the  Greeks  that  it  is  something  of  a  surprise  to  learn 
that  the  deistic  ideas  of  the  early  Romans  were  most  vague, 
while  the  ritualistic  side  of  their  religion  was,  on  the  contrary, 
elaborate  and  important.  Fowler  says  that  in  the  oldest  fes- 
tivals the  deities  are  "either  altogether  doubtful,  or  so  want- 
ing in  clearness  and  prominence  as  to  be  subordinate  in  interest 
to  the  details  of  the  ceremony.  .  .  .    The  cult  appealed  to 

*  Bourke,  The  Snake  Dance  of  the  Moqui. 
^  Introduction  to  the  Study  of  Comparative  Religion,  pp.  91  f. 
^  James  Teit,   Memoirs  of  the  American  Museum  of  Natural  History ^ 
Vol.  II,  "The  Thompson  Indians,"  p.  349. 
K 


130  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

this  people  as  the  practical  method  of  obtaining  their  desires, 
but  the  unseen  powers  with  whom  they  dealt  in  this  cult  were 
beyond  their  ken,  often  unnamed."  ^  In  many  of  their  festi- 
vals we  find  the  occupations  of  the  family  and  the  various 
"processes  and  perils  of  pastoral  and  agricultural  industry" 
clearly  represented.^ 

In  the  native  Roman  religion,  in  fact,  we  may  find  almost 
our  whole  theory  of  the  origin  and  development  of  religion 
clearly  illustrated.  To  start  with,  they  had  the  primitive 
interests  in  food  and  in  the  family,  and  about  these  interests 
various  activities,  of  necessity,  sprang  up.  These  acts  served 
not  merely  to  express  but  also  to  enhance  the  interests,  and 
they  seem  in  time  to  have  become  true  religious  ceremonies. 
One  or  two  illustrations  from  many  will  suffice.  The  im- 
portance of  the  family  in  the  life  of  the  early  Romans  is 
well  known.  As  such  it  called  forth  many  activities  which 
expressed  and  emphasized  the  values  of  the  household. 
Two  of  their  objects  of  especial  attention  were  the  doorway 
and  the  hearth.  As  Fowler  says,  the  entrance  to  the  house 
was  "the  dangerous  point,  where  both  evil  men  and  evil 
spirits  might  find  a  way  in."  Hence  to  the  father  of  the 
family  naturally  belonged  the  care  of  the  doorway,  and  from 
this  arose  his  function  of  the  priest  of  Janus.^  We  cannot 
doubt  that  the  ritual  of  the  worship  of  Janus  developed  from 
the  expedients  used  by  the  father  to  protect  his  dwelling  from 
all  evil.  We  may  assume,  also,  that  these  acts  antedated  the 
conception  of  a  god  of  entrances,  and  that  through  them 
such  a  concept  was  actually  built  up.  The  very  vagueness 
of  the  idea  of  this  god,  even  with  the  Romans  themselves,  in- 
dicates that  their  interest  was  rather  in  the  concrete  values 

*  Fowler,  Roman  Festivals,  p.  337. 
» Ibid.,  p.  335. 
» Ibid.,  p.  288. 


THE  ORIGIN   OF  RELIGIOUS   PRACTICES         131 

associated  with  the  doorway  and  in  the  practical  expedients 
necessary  in  guarding  it.  Thus  the  generalized  worship  of 
Janus  as  the  god  of  beginnings  sprang  not  from  the  per- 
sonification of  ''an  abstract  idea  of  beginning  .  .  .  but  from 
the  concrete  fact  that  the  entrance  to  the  house  was  the 
initium,  or  beginning  of  the  house,  and  at  the  same  time  the 
point  from  which  you  started  on  all  undertakings."  * 

The  worship  of  Vesta,  the  goddess  of  the  hearth,  illustrates 
the  point  still  further.  The  hearth  was  another  centre  of 
interest  in  the  primitive  household,  and  the  daughters  of  the 
house  had  an  important  function  in  keeping  the  fire  always 
alight,  so  that,  without  loss  of  time,  it  might  be  used  when 
needed.^  All  the  subsequent  development  of  the  Vestal 
Virgins  and  their  subordination  to  the  pontifex  maximus 
clearly  harks  back  to  the  place  of  the  daughters  in  the  early 
Italian  household,  upon  whom  devolved  the  duties  about  the 
hearth.  The  importance  of  fire  for  human  life  may  well  have 
made  it,  in  very  early  times,  an  object  of  veneration,  and  all 
acts  necessary  in  preserving  and  using  it  were  consequently 
more  or  less  religious.  Out  of  the  household  duties  developed 
the  beliefs  and  ceremonials  of  the  goddess  of  the  hearth.  Of 
the  later  cult  we  are  told,  ''The  close  connection  of  Vesta  and 
her  ministrants  with  the  simple  materials  and  processes  of  the 
house  and  the  farm  is  .  .  .  quite  plain ;  and  we  may  trace  it 
in  every  rite  in  which  they  took  part."  ^ 

The  interest  of  the  Romans  in  the  ritual  of  their  religion 
rather  than  in  their  gods  suggests  that  in  the  former  they 
found  real  expression  for  their  religious  valuations.  More- 
over, the  many  obvious  connections  of  the  ritual  with  the 
practical  interests  and  crises  of  life  and  with  such  social  and 
play  activities  as  arise  among  the  members  of  a  primitive 
group  confirm  in  a  striking  way  the  theory  of  the  natural 

*  Ibid.,  p.  289.  2  75^^  p  j^y  3  /jj-^^  p   j^Q^ 


132  DEVELOPMENT   OF   RELIGION 

history  of  religious  practices,  and  with  them  of  the  religious 
attitude,  which  has  been  presented  in  these  pages. 

It  is  perhaps  unnecessary  to  give  further  illustrations. 
Whether  those  which  have  been  offered  lend  genuine  support 
to  the  thesis  of  the  chapter,  the  reader  will  have  to  judge  for 
himself.  If  they  do  not,  the  multiplication  of  instances  will 
not  be  any  more  convincing.  Our  attempt  has  been  rather 
to  illustrate  a  point  of  view  than  to  adduce  all  the  evidence  in 
support  of  it  which  seems  to  us  to  be  pertinent.  It  is  needless 
to  say  that  this  evidence  might  be  extended  almost  indefinitely. 

Our  conclusion  is  that  the  accumulation  of  habits  in  various 
directions  is  one  of  the  first  steps  in  the  evolution  of  religion. 
The  world  for  most  of  us  consists  primarily  of  a  number  of 
foci  of  interests.  What  we  apprehend  is  always  related  to 
ourselves  more  or  less  directly.  This  sense  of  relationship, 
as  we  have  tried  to  show,  depends  quite  definitely  upon  the 
fact  that  we  are  active  creatures.  The  first  objects  of  attention 
come  to  consciousness  because  we  have  been  doing  something 
in  various  instinctive  or  impulsive  ways.  These  objects  de- 
velop, their  values  become  more  pronounced,  as  still  further 
adjustments,  or  modes  of  behavior,  are  organized  and  elabo- 
rated about  them. 

In  connection  with  this  development  of  behavior  as  in- 
fluencing the  imfolding  of  interests  and  values,  it  will  be 
necessary,  however,  to  take  account  of  another  factor,  a  *  con- 
cept,' we  may  call  it,  for  want  of  a  better  term,  which  has  prob- 
ably played  a  large  part  in  the  unfolding  of  human  thought, 
and  has  consequently  reacted  in  important  ways  upon  behav- 
ior and  custom.  It  is  difficult  to  relate  it  exactly  to  what  has 
thus  far  been  said  of  the  development  of  the  value-conscious- 
ness, and  yet  it  has  had  a  part  in  that  development  which  we 
trust  will  not  seem  to  be  altogether  adventitious,  even  though 
we  should  stand  firmly  upon  the  theory  as  thus  far  outlined. 


THE   ORIGIN   OF   RELIGIOUS   PRACTICES         133 

This  'concept,'  if  we  may  call  it  such,  is  not  in  itself  a  religious 
one,  although  it  has  been  operative,  along  with  other  things, 
in  the  development  of  the  religious  attitude.  The  notion  to 
which  we  refer  is  that  there  is  in  the  universe,  as  the  primitive 
man  knows  it,  an  undefined  and  hence  more  or  less  impersonal 
force,  a  force  extremely  potent  in  nature  and  in  the  affairs  of 
human  life,  and  with  which  man  may,  in  various  ways,  come 
into  rapport.  To  the  consideration  of  the  nature,  origin,  and 
possible  influence  of  this  *  concept/  we  shall  devote  the  follow- 
ing chapter. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE   MYSTERIOUS   POWER 

The  problem  of  this  chapter  can  best  be  suggested  by  the 
following  statement  regarding  the  Algonkin:  They  possess 
"an  unsystematic  belief  in  a  cosmic,  mysterious  property, 
which  is  believed  to  exist  everywhere  in  nature."  This  prop- 
erty seems  to  be  an  impersonal  one,  and  whenever  it  is  as- 
sociated with  objects  in  nature,  it  becomes  obscure  and  con- 
fused. While  manifesting  itself  in  various  ways,  its  emotional 
effect  is  always  a  sort  of  sense  of  mystery.*  This  belief, 
vague  and  indefinable  as  it  is  in  the  mind  of  the  man  of  primi- 
tive culture,  has  consequently  been  easily  misunderstood  by 
those  of  other  cultural  levels.  This  *  mystery '  of  the  Indians 
was  at  first  identified  as  a  deity,  or  *  Great  Spirit,'  and  even 
yet  it  is  extremely  difficult  for  the  anthropologist  to  determine 
the  precise  face-value  of  the  concept  as  held  by  some  North 
American  tribes.  The  white  man's  natural  tendency  seems 
to  be  to  conceive  it  in  terms  of  mind,  or  personality.  Thus 
Brinton,  with  his  mind  undoubtedly  saturated  with  Indian 
beliefs,  offers  this  generalization  regarding  the  basis  of  re- 
ligion: ''Behind  the  sensuous,  phenomenal  world,  distinct 
from  it,  giving  it  form,  existence,  and  activity,  lies  the  ulti- 
mate, invisible,  immeasurable  power  of  Mind,  of  conscious 
Will,"  with  which  man  is  in  some  sort  of  communication.^ 

That  there  exists  a  very  widespread  belief  analogous,  if 

*  William  Jones,  "The  Algonkin  Manitou,"  The  Journal  of  American 
Folklore,  Vol.  XVIII,  p.  190. 

*  The  Religions  of  Primitive  Peoples,  p.  47. 

134 


THE  MYSTERIOUS   POWER  135 

not  identical,  with  the  'mystery'  of  the  North  American 
Indians,  the  manitou  of  the  Algonkin,  seems  increasingly 
evident,  but  that  it  is  a  concept  of  a  personal  force  or  agency 
is  more  and  more  open  to  question.  Aston,  writing  from  the 
point  of  view  of  primitive  Japanese  religion,  says :  "  Primitive 
man  did  not  think  of  the  world  as  pervaded  by  spiritual  forces. 
His  attitude  was  a  piecemeal  conception  of  the  universe  as 
alive,  just  as  his  fellow-man  was  regarded  as  alive  without 
being  analyzed  into  soul  and  body."  ^  In  general,  the  belief 
in  this  potency,  for  which  there  is  no  suitable  single  word  in 
English,  is  well  described  as  follows :  "The  conception  of  this 
something  wavers  between  that  of  a  communicable  property, 
that  of  a  mobile,  invisible  substance  and  that  of  a  latent  trans- 
ferable energy;  .  .  .  this  substance,  property,  or  energy  is 
conceived  as  being  widely  diffused  amongst  natural  objects 
and  human  beings;  .  .  .  the  presence  of  it  is  promptly 
assigned  as  the  explanation  of  any  unusual  power  or  efficacy 
which  any  object  or  person  is  found  to  possess;  ...  the 
mind  of  the  savage  of  these  races  is  intensely  interested  in  this 
force,  or  property,  and  greatly  preoccupied  with  the  thought  of 
it."  It  is  "a  distinct  and  rather  abstract  conception  of  a 
diffused,  all-pervasive,  invisible,  manipulable,  and  transfer- 
able life-energy,  or  universal  force."  *' All  success,  strength, 
or  prosperity  is  conceived  to  depend  upon  the  possession  of" 
this  force  in  sufficient  quantity.^ 

The  science  of  religion  has  long  been  encumbered  with  such 
terms  as  animism,  fetichism,  totemism,  nature,  tree,  stone, 
and  ancestor  worship.  They  imdoubtedly  stand  for  true  ob- 
jective facts,  but  since  they  refer  only  to  the  object  of  worship, 
taking  no  account  of  the  mental  attitude  expressed  by  them, 

*  Shinto,  p.  26. 

'  "  The  fundamental  concept  of  the  primitive  philosophy,"  A.  O.  Love- 
joy,  The  Monist,  Vol.  XVI,  pp.  365,  376. 


136  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

they  have  never  thrown  any  light  upon  the  inwardness  of 
primitive  religion.  CWe  believe  it  can  be  shown  that  the 
'concept'  of  a  Mysterious  Potency  is  the  key  to  the  real  signifi- 
cance of  the  forms  of  worship  so  described,  and  that  it  also 
throws  light  upon  many  obscure  and  curious  savage  customs. 
It  is  an  element  in  the  belief  of  primitive  man  that  we  have  not 
thus  far  taken  into  explicit  account,  a  belief  which  possibly 
has  had  important  influence  upon  the  origin  and  development 
of  the  religious  attitude.  It  is  possible  that  this  belief,  per- 
vasive as  it  seems  to  be,  is  really  the  psychical  foundation  for 
the  so-called  *  perception  of  the  infinite,'  exploited  by  some 
writers,  or  the  'religious  instinct'  which  others  attribute  so 
generally  to  all  men.  We  shall  try  to  show,  however,  that 
this  'concept'  is  a  qujte  natural  result  of  primitive  man's 
contact  with  his  physicaJ_jnvironin^  Our  first  task  is  to 
indicate  the  wide  extent  to  which  such  a  notion  prevails 
among  savage  peoples,  and  thereby  to  gather  something 
more  of  its  meaning. 

As  already  suggested,  it  is  generally  present  in  the  thought 
of  the  North  American  Indians,  as  the  fact  that  it  has,  in 
many  tribes,  a  perfectly  specific  name  seems  to  bear  witness. 
Reference  has  just  been  made  to  the  Algonkin  manitou. 
As  the  idea  has,  through  the  subjectivity  of  this  people,  at- 
tained what  is  possibly  the  most  systematic  and  developed 
form  in  which  it  is  anywhere  known,  a  somewhat  detailed  de- 
scription of  it  will  be  proper.  Those  Algonkin  peoples  that 
have  been  most  carefully  studied  ^  conceive  it  in  a  vague, 
naive  manner  as  a  sort  of  active,  cosmic  property,  or  essence, 
which,  although  present  everywhere,  is  frequently  possessed 
in  preeminent  degree  by  particular  objects  or  persons.  The 
Indian's  conception  of  its  nature  is  never  precisely  formu- 
lated, but  is  rather  to  be  inferred  from  what  he,  in  a  child;^ 

*  Vide  William  Jones,  op.  cit.,  p.  183. 


i 


THE  MYSTERIOUS  POWER  137 

like  way,  takes  for  granted  in  describing  something  he  does. 
Thus,  according  to  Dr.  Jones,  a  Fox  man  comments  upon 
the  experience  of  the  sweat  lodge  as  follows:  *' Often  one 
will  cut  one's  self  over  the  arms  and  legs,  slitting  one's  self 
through  the  skin.  It  is  done  to  open  up  many  passages  for 
the  manitou  to  pass  into  the  body.  The  manitou  comes  from 
the  place  of  its  abode  in  the  stone.  It  becomes  roused  by 
the  heat  of  the  fire,  and  proceeds  out  of  the  stone  when  the 
water  is  sprinkled  on  it.  It  comes  out  in  the  steam,  and  in 
the  steam  it  enters  the  body  wherever  it  finds  entrance.  It 
moves  up  and  down  and  all  over  inside  the  body,  driving  out 
everything  that  inflicts  pain.  Before  the  manitou  returns  to 
the  stone,  it  imparts  some  of  its  nature  to  the  body.  That  is 
why  one  feels  so  well  after  having  been  in  the  sweat  lodge." 
The  manitou  is,  then,  a  virtue  which  can  be  transferred  from 
one  physical  object  to  another.  It  is  capable  of  producing  not 
only  physical  effects  but  mental  ones  as  well.  If  a  man  is 
brave,  or  shows  any  extraordinary  quality,  it  is  because  he  is 
the  possessor  of  a  large  measure  of  this  impersonal  essence,  the 
manitoUy  and  if  his  enemies  kill  him  and  eat  his  heart,  it  is  to 
reenforce  their  own  manitou  with  the  supernatural  quality 
of  their  foe,  believing  implicitly  that  it  will  react  upon  them 
in  the  way  it  has  upon  him.  Whenever  anything  out  of  the 
ordinary  happens,  or  whenever  a  person  manifests  a  remark- 
able ability,  it  is  regarded  as  due  to  an  unusual  endowment  of 
manitou.  It  is  supposed  to  show  itself  in  an  especial  man- 
ner through  dreams  and  in  the  mystic  transports  which  follow 
long  fasts  and  solitary  meditation.  It  is,  therefore,  by  such 
means  that  the  youth  of  these  people  seek  to  become  endowed 
with  the  manitoUj  or  at  least  to  put  themselves  into  rapport 
with  it.  It  is  important  to  note  that  the  manitou  is  primarily 
a  mysterious  quasi-mechanical  essence,  the  active  element  in 
all  that  is  strange,  excellent,  or  powerful.     It  is  equally  im- 


138  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

portant  to  note  that  this  quality  comes  by  insensible  steps  to 
be  identified  in  many  cases  with  the  object  or  person  of  which 
it  is  the  vehicle,  so  that  in  the  end  it  may  be  said  to  be  in  a 
measure  personified.^  The  belief  in  this  vital  quality  of  things 
lies  at  the  basis  of  Algonkin  religion  and  most  of  its  attendant 
rites  and  ceremonies.  Since  all  special  ability  depends  upon 
it,  man's  most  important  opportunity  is  to  endeavor  to  es- 
tablish and  to  maintain  right  relations  to  it.  The  emotional 
effects  connected  with  these  ideas  and  observances  are  natu- 
rally intense  and  are  interpreted  by  these  peoples  as  evidence 
that  manitou  has  entered  into  them.^ 

The  name  of  this  impersonal  potency  is,  among  the  Siouan 
peoples,  wakonda,  or  terms  closely  cognate  with  it.  It  is 
conceived  as  a  power  that  may  reside  in  the  various  objects  of 
nature,  e.g.  in  the  sun,  moon,  thunder,  lightning,  stars,  winds, 
plants,  animals,  and  man.  An  object  or  man  believed  to 
possess  that  power  is  said  to  be  wakonda.  "In  addition,  the 
term  was  applied  to  mythic  monsters  of  the  earth,  air,  and 
waters,"  to  fetiches  and  ceremonial  objects  and  to  many 
places  of  striking  character.^  The  Omaha  believed  in 
wakonda  as  a  pervasive  life  in  all  nature,  the  animating  prin- 
ciple of  all  phenomena  and  of  human  endeavor.  There  is  no 
evidence  that  they  regarded  it  as  a  supreme  being;  it  simply 
"  expressed  the  Indian's  idea  of  immanent  life  manifested  in 
all  things."  It  was  a  subtle  bond  of  life  common  to  man  and 
nature  by  means  of  which  he  could  secure  from  the  objects  of 
nature  the  assistance  of  their  special  powers.     In  other  words, 

*  This  naive  confusion  of  property  with  object  is  important  as  an  illustra- 
tion of  a  possible  transition  from  this  primitive  force-concept  to  the  notion  of 
spiritual  agencies  and  later  of  deities.  We  do  not  understand  that  these 
people  have  any  strictly  spiritualistic  beliefs. 

^  In  part  based  upon  and  in  part  condensed  from  William  Jones,  op.  cU., 
pp.  183-190. 

'  McGee,  Fifteenth  Annual  Report  of  the  Bureau  of  Ethnology,  p.  157. 


THE   MYSTERIOUS   POWER  139 

wakonda  is  productive  energy,  "  that  which  makes  or  brings  to 
pass."  ^  It  also  meant,  in  a  vague  way,  power,  sacred,  an- 
cient, grandeur,  animate,  immortal.  As  in  the  case  of  the 
manitou  belief,  many  things  are  wakonda.  Whatever  attracts 
attention  in  any  way,  or  seems  associated  with  any  striking 
occurrence,  is  thought  to  possess  in  some  measure  this  mechan- 
ical, impersonal  power.  The  wild  animals,  especially  those 
characterized  by  cunning,  fleetness,  and  great  strength, 
were  thought  to  owe  it  to  some  peculiarly  intimate  contact 
with  this  power.  All  human  achievement,  beyond  the  most 
commonplace,  was  not  thought  to  be  due  to  any  special  merit 
in  the  individual,  but  solely  to  his  shrewdness  or  to  his  luck 
in  making  proper  connections  with  wakonda.  There  is  no 
reason  in  the  mind  of  these  people  for  the  masterful  progress 
of  the  white  race  other  than  that  they  have  gotten  a  better  hold 
upon  wakonda  than  has  the  Indian.  Blood,  and  hence  the 
menstruant  woman,  is  wakonda.  She  radiates  danger  and 
also  fecundating  energy.  Here,  as  Lovejoy  holds,  possibly 
may  be  found  the  basis  of  the  puzzling  sex  taboos  and  of  the 
*  nudity  charm.^  Among  the  Omaha,  the  rules  of  the  buffalo 
hunt,  the  consecration  of  hearts  and  tongues,  ceremonies  of 
anointing  the  sacred  pole,  planting  corn,  and  many  other 
details  of  the  ceremonial  life  relate  to  the  securing  or  making 
of  proper  contacts  with  wakonda.^ 

To  the  Dakota,  the  common  whirlwind,  for  instance,  is 
peculiarly  endowed  with  wakonda^  and  whenever  a  man  or 
animal  makes  a  motion  analogous  to  the  whirlwind,  he  is 
believed  to  possess  some  of  its  power,  or  to  be  trying  to  get  it. 

*  Alice  C.  Fletcher,  Proceedings  of  the  American  Association  for  the  Ad- 
vancement of  Science,  1897,  p.  326.  It  is  true,  as  Lovejoy  points  out,  and  in 
this  Dr.  William  Jones  agrees,  that  Miss  Fletcher  interprets  wakonda  in 
terms  of  will,  whereas  will  (volition)  was  probably  only  a  special  case  of 
wakonda. 

'  McGee,  op.  cU. 


I40  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

Thus  the  moth,  because  of  its  fluttering  wings,  and  especially 
because  of  the  way  in  which  it  emerges  from  its  cocoon,  is 
possessed  of  the  power  of  the  whirlwind.  The  buffalo  bull 
is  supposed  to  be  seeking  to  obtain  the  whirlwind's  power, 
when,  before  going  into  a  fight  he  paws  the  earth  and  deftly 
throws  a  little  dust  up  into  the  air,  producing  the  semblance 
of  a  whirlwind.*  In  these  imitative  acts  we  have  a  most 
valuable  suggestion  as  to  the  method  of  the  development  of 
magical  rites  from  this  general  belief  in  a  mysterious  power.^ 

The  Iroquois  had  a  belief  very  similar  to  that  of  the  other 
Indian  stocks  referred  to  above,  the  term  used  by  them  being 
orenda,  or  a  closely  allied  word.  Howitt,  who  has  discussed 
it  most  at  length,  defines  it  as  "a  hypothetical  potence  or 
potentiality  to  do  or  effect  results  mystically."  An  Iroquois 
shaman  was  one  who  had  much  orenda.  A  fine  hunter 
likewise  had  a  superior  quality  of  orenda,  while  an  unsuccess- 
ful hunter  was  one  whose  orenda  was  not  a  match  for  the 
orenda  of  the  game.  If  one  clan  wins  out  in  a  contest  with 
another,  it  is  because  again  of  superior  contact  with  orenda.^ 

It  is  impossible  to  say  from  a  study  of  the  literature  deal- 
ing with  them  that  all  of  the  North  American  Indian  stocks 
possess  the  idea,  since  it  has  so  often  been  misinterpreted 
by  their  observers  under  the  category  of  personal  divinities. 
Among  the  Iroquois  the  idea  is  in  no  wise  a  synonym  for  a 
psychic  element  of  any  sort,  for,  as  Howitt  points  out,  their 
names  for  life,  soul,  ghost,  mind,  and  brain,  as  well  as  that 
for  muscular  strength,  are  in  no  way  related  to  the  word 
orenda.  In  the  light  of  the  evidence  we  possess,  it  seems  alto- 
gether likely  that  the  belief  in  a  mysterious  power  of  the  sort 

^  "The  whirlwind  and  the  elk  in  the  mythology  of  the  Dakota,"  Wissler, 
Journal  of  American  Folklore,  Vol.  XVIII,  p.  257. 

'  Vide  Chap.  VII,  Magic,  infra. 

^  J.  N.  B.  Howitt,  "Orenda,  and  a  suggestion  toward  the  origin  of 
religion,"  The  American  Anthropologist^  Vol.  IV  (N.  S.),  p.  38. 


THE  MYSTERIOUS   POWER  141 

described  above  was  very  widely  prevalent  among  the  Indian 
peoples.  The  Shoshonean  tribes  possessed  it  (Howitt),  and 
it  was  or  is  a  well-developed  notion  among  the  Kwakiutl 
(Boas).  The  Pueblo  also  possibly  have  it  in  some  form. 
One  writer  says  that  they  worship  the  sun  and  moon,  not  as 
objects  in  themselves,  but  as  the  manifestation  of  a  mysterious 
power.  The  following  description  of  the  Northern  Maidu  of 
California  strongly  suggests  the  same  belief.  They  think 
"that  the  whole  country  occupied  by  them  is  thronged  with 
mysterious  powers,  or  spirits,  known  as  kukini,  ,  .  .  These 
beings  are  regarded  as  residing  at  definite  spots,  to  which  in 
particular  the  shamans  go  to  gain  power."  They  may  be- 
come the  guardian  spirits  of  these  functionaries.^  The  like- 
ness of  this  belief  to  the  Algonkin  theory  of  maniiou,  which 
one  may  obtain  for  himself  as  a  sort  of  protective  agency,  is 
very  significant.  In  fact,  manitou  has  often  been  called  a 
guardian  spirit,  which  it  certainly  is  not,  if  guardian  spirit 
is  taken  in  the  ordinary  sense ;  for  when  the  Algonkin  youth 
goes  into  seclusion  to  secure  the  manitou^  and  dreams  of  or  has 
a  waking  huUucination  of  some  animal  which  he  henceforth 
regards  as  a  protector,  his  idea  is  simply  that  this  animal  stands 
ready  to  assist  him  with  its  own  manitou  when  he  needs  it. 
If  the  belief  of  the  Maidu  is  a  genuine  spiritistic  notion,  it  is  at 
least  valuable  in  this  connection  as  showing  a  bond  of  union 
between  the  idea  of  the  mysterious  force  and  that  of  the  ani- 
mistic view  of  the  world. 

There  are  also  remnants  of  this  belief  among  the  Pawnee, 
although  it  is  very  difficult  to  determine  its  importance  to  them. 
Their  fascinating  star-cult  ^  may  be  only  a  variation  of  the 
manitou  philosophy,  notwithstanding  those  investigators  to 

^Roland  Dixon,  "The  Northern  Maidu,"  Bulletin  of  the    American 
Museum  of  Natural  History,  Vol.  XVII,  p.  265. 
■  See  G.  A.  Dorsey's  studies  of  the  Pawnee. 


142  DEVELOPMENT  OF  RELIGION 

whom  we  owe  our  knowledge  of  the  cult  regard  it  as  based 
upon  a  well-developed  pantheon  of  genuine  deities.  If  this 
is  the  case,  it  is  possible  that  the  Pawnee  religion  is  an  illus- 
tration of  how  the  impersonal  conception  may,  under  appro- 
priate social  and  economic  conditions,  develop  into  the  more 
advanced  religious  type.  It  is  a  significant  fact,  however,  that 
Mr.  James  R.  Murie,  the  Pawnee  informant  of  these  investi- 
gators, assures  Mr.  William  Jones  that  the  fundamental  idea 
of  this  cult  is  precisely  that  of  the  Algonkin  manitou. 

The  Thompson  Indians  also  have  the  manitou  'concept,' 
but  it  is  difficult  to  determine  whether  the  following  descrip- 
tions by  Teit  refer  to  it  or  not;  in  any  case  they  strongly 
suggest  it.  They  believe  in  the  existence  of  a  great  many 
mysterious  beings.  The  '  land  mysteries '  are  the  spirits  of  the 
mountain  peaks.  In  the  lakes  and  at  cascades  live  *  water 
mysteries.*  Some  of  these  assume  bodily  form  and  appear  to 
men.  "  A  lake  in  the  mountains  near  the  Coast  tribes  has  never 
been  known  to  freeze  over,  no  matter  how  cold  the  weather." 
This  is,  of  course,  interpreted,  as  in  the  case  with  anything 
strange  or  unusual,  as  evidence  of  the  influence  of  some 
mystery,  which,  so  far  as  the  accounts  go,  seems  to  the  present 
writer  quite  the  same  as  the  mystic  ^oi^ncy ^wakonda.  With 
their  minds  full  of  the  idea  of  a  mystic  power  in  everything, 
it  is  not  strange  that  they  are  subject  to  many  confirmatory 
hallucinations.  On  the  surface  of  the  lake  above  mentioned, 
apparitions  at  certain  times  appear.  "  A  lake  at  the  head  of 
Salmon  River  becomes  (as  they  think)  very  tempestuous  as 
soon  as  people  touch  its  waters."  Their  prayers  and  observ- 
ances of  various  kinds  "were  founded  on  their  belief  in 
mysterious  powers  pervading  all  nature.  The  stars,  the 
dawn,  mountains,  trees,  animals,  were  all  believed  to  be 
possessed  of  mysterious  powers."  *  As  far  as  mere  words  go, 
*  James  Teit,  op.  cit.,  pp.  338,  344  et  al. 


THE  MYSTERIOUS   POWER  143  ^ 

this  description  would  apply  perfectly  to  the  Iroquois  or  to  the 
Algonkin.  The  Thompson  Indians  in  all  their  old  prayers 
addressed  simply  'Thou'  or  'Chief,'  referring  to  a  power  or 
essence  possibly  much  more  vague  than  these  names  in 
English  seem  to  connote.  ''Roots,  and  other  vegetables, 
growing  near  a  haunted  or  mysterious  lake,  should  not  be 
dug  or  gathered.  Vegetation  near  such  a  lake  is  called  its 
blanket,  and  the  lake,  if  robbed  of  its  blanket,  will  take  re- 
venge by  visiting  sickness,  bad  luck,  or  death  upon  the  root- 
gatherer."  This,  again,  would  seem  to  be  due  to  some 
mystic  power  present  in  these  places. 

A  very  clear  and  striking  instance  of  the  belief  in  this  im- 
personal 'force'  is  to  be  found  among  the  Melanesian  Isl- 
anders. They  believe  in  a  power,  or  influence,  not  physical, 
and  in  a  way  supernatural.  It  shows  itself,  however,  in 
various  physical  forces  and  in  any  kind  of  power  or  excellence 
which  a  man  may  possess.  This  potency  is  called  by  various 
names  in  the  different  groups  of  islands,  but  the  notion  is 
everywhere  fundamentally  the  same.  One  of  the  most 
convenient  of  its  names  is  mana,  and  by  this  we  shall  here 
refer  to  it.  This  mana  is  not  fixed  in  anything,  and  can  be 
conveyed  in  almost  anything;  spirits,  also,  whether  ghosts  or 
supernatural  beings,  have  mana  and  can  impart  it  to  persons 
or  objects.  Although  personal  beings  are  its  source,  mana  can 
act  through  various  media,  such  as  water,  stones,  bones,  and 
the  like.  "All  Melanesian  religion  consists  in  getting  this 
mana  for  one's  self,  or  getting  it  used  for  one's  benefit,  all 
religion,  that  is,  as  far  as  religious  practices  go."  ^  It  is  sup- 
posed to  reside  in  everything  out  of  the  ordinary  in  human 
life  or  in  nature.  It  may  be  attached  to  persons,  ghosts,  spirits, 
or  things.  "  When  one  has  got  it,  he  can  use  it  and  direct  it, 
but  its  force  may  break  forth  at  some  new  point,"  its  presence 

^  Qodrington,  The  Melanesians,  p.  119. 


144  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

being  determined  by  what  are,  to  the  natives,  definite  objective 
proofs.  Thus,  if  one  of  these  islanders  finds  a  queer-shaped 
stone,  similar,  for  instance,  to  the  fruit  of  some  tree,  he  will 
put  it  at  the  foot  of  such  a  tree  to  see  if  it  will  increase  its 
yield,  and  if  he  imagines  that  this  has  been  increased,  he  is 
convinced  that  his  stone  contains  mana.  If  a  friend  wishes 
to  secure  some  of  this  same  advantage  for  his  own  trees,  he  may 
bring  a  stone,  and  on  payment  of  a  suitable  sum,  lay  it  by  the 
side  of  the  stone  which  contains  the  mana,  and  thus  secure 
some  for  himself.  Ordinarily,  however,  it  seems  that  mana 
is  secured  through  the  aid  of  spirits  and  ghosts.  Prayers  and 
sacrifices  are  addressed  to  them,  but  only  to  induce  them  to 
assist  the  worshipper  with  some  of  their  mana.  These  sac- 
rifices are,  in  many  cases,  little  more  than  charms  for  securing 
the  ^  power.' 

In  some  of  the  islands  the  ghosts  are  the  most  important 
avenues  of  securing  mana;  in  others  it  is  the  spirits.  Only 
those  ghosts  are  given  this  quasi-worship  who,  when  in  the 
body,  gave  evidence  of  having  unusual  control  over  the 
power.  It  is  thus  somewhat  more  definitely  connected  with 
persons  than  it  is  in  the  belief  of  the  North  American 
Indians,  and  this  connection  with  persons  is  a  possible  ex- 
planation of  how  it  came  to  be  so  closely  identified  with  ghosts 
and  spirits.  The  following  words  of  Codrington  suggest  some 
further  details  as  to  the  connotation  of  the  concept.  It  is  an 
"  invisible  power  which  is  believed  by  the  natives  to  cause  all 
such  effects  as  transcend  their  conception  of  the  regular  course 
of  nature,  and  to  reside  in  spiritual  beings,  whether  in  the 
spiritual  part  of  living  men  or  in  the  ghosts  of  the  dead,  being 
imparted  by  them  to  their  names  and  to  various  things]  that 
belong  to  them,  such  as  stones,  snakes,  and  indeed  objects  of 
all  sorts."  By  means  of  the  power,  men  may  bring  about 
both  good  and  ill,  may  bless  and  curse.    It  is  thus  evident 


THE   MYSTERIOUS   POWER  145  - 

that  it  is  an  entirely  impersonal  and  quasi-mechanical  some- 
thing with  which  spirits  are  in  peculiar  rapport^  but  which  is 
also  in  a  measure  controlled  by  men  who  have  distinguished 
themselves  by  great  bravery  and  by  daring  feats/  and  hence 
by  easy  transfer  is  also  possessed  by  the  ghosts  of  these  men 
as  long  as  their  memory  is  comparatively  fresh.^ 

On  account  of  the  great  economic  and  social  differences  of 
the  Algonkin  and  the  Melanesian,  it  is  useless  to  try  to  deter- 
mine which  of  them  have  the  concept  in  the  most  highly 
developed  form.  It  seems  clear  that  the  Melanesian  idea 
belongs  to  the  same  genus  if  not  to  the  same  species  as  does 
that  of  the  Indian.  We  shall  attempt  to  show  presently  that 
this  whole  general  notion  of  an  impersonal  force  may  very 
legitimately  be  regarded  as  the  direct  result  of  man's  first  and 
most  unreflective  reactions  to  his  world.  If  such  was  the 
case,  it  seems  most  in  accord  with  what  we  know  of  social 
change  to  regard  the  various  forms  of  the  concept  found 
among  different  peoples  as  divergent  growths  having  no 
serial  relationships,  but  rather  cognates,  their  divergences 
-  being  due  to  the  different  social  and  physical  contexts  in 
which  they  have  existed.  Thus  the  Indian  notion,  at  least 
that  of  the  Algonkin  stock,  is  rather  highly  generalized  and  is 
the  relatively  abstract  outcome  of  a  certain  amount  of  naive 
reflection.  The  Indian  does  not  appear  to  have  had  the  same 
interest  in  spirits  and  ghosts  that  the  Melanesian  has  had, 
and  hence  his  concept  has  not  been  associated  with  spiritual  • 
agencies,  while,  with  the  Melanesian,  the  idea  has  been  very 
definitely  associated  with  ghosts  and  spirits.  The  reasons  for 
this  difference  of  interest  are  probably  connected  in  some 
subtle  way  with  the  social  development  of  each  people,  and 

^  The  Melanesians,  p.  191. 

'  A  'concept'  similar  to  that  contained  in  mana  is  also  found  among  the 
Maori,  where  the  same  term  is  applied  to  it.     Cf.  J.  C.   Andersen,  Maori 
Life  in  Ao-tea,  Wellington,  N.Z.,  1907. 
L 


146  DEVELOPMENT  OF  RELIGION 

of  this  we  know  practically  nothing.  It  would  be  entirely 
gratuitous  to  say  that  the  Melanesian  belief  is  a  development 
from  a  preexisting  ghost  or  spirit  worship.  There  is  no 
evidence  that  they  now  worship  ghosts.  They  simply  honor 
them  or  inveigle  them  to  secure  their  mana,  and  ghosts  which 
have  never  given  evidence  of  possessing  any  of  it  are  promptly 
forgotten. 

There  is  somewhat  definite  evidence  that  the  concept  of  the 
mysterious  impersonal  force  is  held  by  many  other  races. 
Lovejoy  *  gives  a  good  resume  of  some  of  this  evidence.  He 
finds  an  idea  of  the  sort  reported  as  held  by  various  Poly- 
nesian and  allied  races ;  he  refers  to  the  clear  testimony  of 
Hetherwick  that  certain  of  the  Bantu  peoples  possess  it,  and 
to  the  probability  that  it  is  also  to  be  found  among  the  Masai. 
The  Bantu  word  is  mulungu,  which  is  connected  with  words 
meaning  great  or  old.  **In  its  native  use  and  form  the  word 
does  not  imply  personality,  for  it  does  not  belong  to  the  per- 
sonal class  of  nouns.  Its  form  rather  denotes  a  property 
inhering  in  something,  as  life  or  health  inheres  in  the  body. 
.  .  .  The  untaught  Yao  refuses  to  assign  to  it  any  idea  of 
being  or  personality. "  ^  Another  observer  reports  the 
Bantu  as  having  a  vague  notion  of  a  power  transcending 
ordinary  spirits.  Baring-Gould  says  of  the  nomads  of  north- 
ern Asia  that  God  is  to  them  awful  and  undefined.  They  feel 
his  presence  about  them  and  above  them,  and,  with  dazzled 
and  bewildered  mind,  seek  to  know  nothing  more.  In  the 
light  of  what  we  have  noted  regarding  primitive  belief  else- 
where, it  is  tempting  to  think  that  here  also  we  have  the  con- 
cept of  the  'wonderful,'  the  'mysterious,'  and  that  the  idea 

»  "Primitive philosophy,"  The Monist,  Vol.  XVI,  pp.  372  flF. 

*  Hetherwick,  A.,  Journal  of  Anthropological  Institute  of  Great  Britain 
and  Ireland,  Vol.  XXXII,  p.  93.  Quoted  by  Lovejoy,  op.  cit.  For  the 
Masai,  see  Thomson,  Through  Masailand,  and  HoUis,  The  Masai., 


THE  MYSTERIOUS   POWER  147 

of  personality  has  been  read  into  it  by  an  observer  with 
preconceptions. 

In  the  case  of  several  peoples  which  have  been  carefully 
studied,  but  not  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  belief  here  dis- 
cussed, there  are  many  suggestions  thrown  out  which  seem 
most  intelligible  if  taken  in  connection  with  this  belief.  There 
are  frequent  references  in  such  studies  to  'magic  power'  or 
the  like,  and  from  all  descriptions  it  is  entirely  cognate  with 
mana  or  wakonda.  The  term  *  magic  power, '  however,  is  un- 
fortunate because  it  predisposes  one  to  lump  all  effects  so  de- 
scribed under  the  heading  of  magic.  Magic,  properly  speak- 
ing, refers  to  a  set  of  practices  of  a  certain  sort,  which  may  or 
may  not  be  founded  upon  a  belief  in  some  mysterious  potency 
such  as  we  have  described  above.  The  reasons  for  regarding 
magic  as  quite  distinct  from  this  can  be  fully  given  only  when 
we  turn  to  the  discussion  of  magic  itself.  We  simply  raise 
the  question  here  as  to  whether,  when  we  are  told  that  certain 
people  believe  that  magic  powers  reside  in  particular  places, 
objects,  or  people,  if  it  is  not  quite  possible  that  in  many  cases 
it  is  really  a  force  analogous  to  the  Melanesian  mana  that  is 
meant.  It  seems  that  a  people  might,  in  the  simplest  stages  of 
such  a  belief,  be  governed  simply  by  the  tacit  assumption  of 
such  an  existence  and  yet  have  no  name  for  it. 

Whether  the  Australians  have  such  a  name  or  not  cannot  be 
definitely  determined  from  reading  the  accounts  of  those  who 
have  directly  studied  them.  On  the  basis  of  such  work  as 
that  of  Spencer  and  Gillen  and  of  Howitt,  Dr.  Frazer  has 
attempted  to  read  magic  into  practically  all  their  belief  and 
practice.  It  seems  to  the  present  writer  that  a  differentiation 
is  here  possible  which  will  generally  add  much  to  our  under- 
standing of  the  true  inwardness  of  primitive  custom. 

The  following  account  from  Spencer  and  Gillen  suggests 
an  attitude  of  mind  so  similar  to  that  of  the  Melanesian  that 


148  DEVELOPMENT  OF  RELIGION 

it  is  difficult  to  regard  it  as  other  than  fundamentally  the 
same.  It  certainly  could  not  be  classed  as  magic  without 
changing  the  connotation  of  that  term  very  radically.  The 
Central  Australians  point  to  a  heap  of  stones  which  they  believe 
some  one  once  vomited  up.  These  are  thought  to  be  full  of 
*evil  magic,'  and  must  be  kept  covered  with  sticks.  If  they 
should  ever  become  exposed,  and  a  person  passing  by  should 
see  them,  he  would  be  made  sick  and  be  caused  to  vomit. 
Hence  all  who  pass  are  careful  to  throw  a  stick  upon  the  heap, 
and  thus  help  to  prevent  the  ^evil  magic'  from  issuing  forth.* 
The  'evil  magic'  here  referred  to  can  be  nothing  other  than 
that  impersonal  mechanical  contagion,  or  force,  which  is  the 
subject  of  this  chapter.  Another  illustration  of  the  same  thing 
is  the  use  made  by  some  of  these  Central  Tribes  of  the  chu- 
ringa,  or  emblem,  of  the  rat  totem.  This  emblem  is  rubbed 
upon  the  faces  of  the  young  men  to  increase  the  growth  of 
their  whiskers.  There  is  the  fundamental  thought  here  that 
the  rat's  long  whiskers  are  due  to  some  especial  power  residing 
in  the  rat,  or,  to  use  the  Algonkin  term,  to  its  manitouy  and 
that  this  may  be  transmitted  to  other  beings  through  any  ob- 
ject associated  with  the  rat.  In  fact,  the  Australian  appar- 
ently believes,  as  do  most  savages,  that  every  power  or  quality 
is  an  endowment  from  without,  rather  than  something  belong- 
ing to  the  very  organism  itself,  that  is,  something  made  pos- 
sible by  the  way  the  animal  or  person  is  built  up.  The  savage 
does  not  have  the  concept  of  the  interrelation  of  structure  and 
function.  Each  living  being  first  exists,  and  then  whatever  it 
does  that  attracts  attention  is  supposedly  due  to  some  especial 
power  which  is  more  or  less  extrinsic  or  detachable. 

It  seems  worth  while  to  illustrate  further  and  in  some  detail 
the  way  in  which  this  idea  underlies  the  general  ceremonial 
life  of  the  Australians.     As  we  have  said,  they  apparently 
[  *  Spencer  and  Gillen,  The  Northern  Tribes  of  Central  Australia,  p.  472. 


THE   MYSTERIOUS   POWER  149 

have  no  specific  name  for  it,  and  hence  probably  do  not  con- 
ceive it  intellectually.  If  we  have  even  approximated  a  cor- 
rect interpretation  of  them,  the  *  concept,'  as  they  have  it,  is 
one  of  habit  rather  than  of  the  intellect ;  that  is  to  say,  various 
automatic  or  reflex  acts  have  gradually  been  elaborated  into  a 
somewhat  definite  biological  attitude  toward  the  world,  an 
attitude  which  they  have  never  had  occasion  to  raise  above 
the  biological  level,  or  to  abstract  from  the  overt,  objective 
world.  Spencer  and  Gillen  quote  from  Curr's  The  Austra- 
lian Race  the  statement  that  the  power  which  enforces  custom 
on  the  tribes  is  mostly  impersonal.  These  authors  believe 
that  the  fear  of  the  old  men  is  the  most  obvious  factor,  not, 
however,  denying  that  there  is  some  notion  of  an  impersonal 
sanction.  While  the  attitude  of  the  younger  members  of  the 
tribe  toward  the  old  men  is  doubtless  most  reverential,  it  is 
also  true  that  old  and  young  alike  believe  that  great  catastro- 
phes would  surely  befall  them  on  the  occasion  of  any  infrac- 
tion of  custom.  Some  of  the  tribes  have  stories  of  great  cosmic 
cataclysms  being  precipitated  because  of  a  man's  indiscretion 
in  revealing  the  sacred  secrets  of  a  ceremony  to  the  women. 
The  old  men  in  all  likelihood  believe  in  a  mysterious  agency  by 
which  the  infraction  of  custom  is  avenged.  This  agency,  if  it 
is  thought  of  at  all,  is  c'ertainly  not  conceived  in  terms  of  any 
spirit  personalities.  In  any  case,  it  is  certainly  true  that  the 
Australian  is  hedged  about  in  most  complicated  ways  by 
powers  of  some  sort,  and  that  these  powers,  whatever  their 
nature,  are  not  associated  with  ghosts  or  spirits  in  any  appre- 
ciable degree,  nor  do  they  even  have,  except  in  certain  pecul- 
iar connections,  any  well-developed  ideas  of  spirits  at  all. 

The  most  interesting  phase  of  Australian  ceremonial  life 
{i.e,  among  the  Central  Tribes)  are  the  Intichiuma  rituals 
which  Dr.  Frazer  explains  under  the  category  of  magic.^    We 
*  Fortnightly  Review,  1905,  pp.  162  and  452. 


I50  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

believe  they  belong  to  a  stage  antecedent  to  both  magic  and 
religion,  and  that  they  furnish  most  interesting  evidence  of  an 
implicit  belief  in  an  impersonal  potency  of  some  sort.  These 
ceremonies  are  sacred  rites  associated  with  the  totems,  "the 
object  of  which  is  to  secure  the  increase  of  the  animal  or  plant 
which  gives  its  name  to  the  totem."  *  All  the  Arunta  natives 
believe  that  the  members  of  each  totem  have  originated  from 
the  animal  or  plant  whose  name  they  bear,  and  this  supposed 
fact  is,  to  them,  a  satisfactory  reason  for  the  totemic  name.^ 
This  theory  of  their  relationship  to  the  totem  must  not  be 
allowed  to  divert  our  attention  from  the  main  point.  Once 
granted  that  an  individual  or  a  group  of  persons  becomes  by 
chance  associated  with  some  plant,  animal,  inanimate  object, 
or  natural  phenomenon,  either  through  contiguity,  or  fancied 
resemblance,  it  requires  no  stretch  of  the  imagination  to  see 
that  the  primitive  man  would  conceive  of  them  as  con- 
nected in  some  hidden  or  mysterious  way,  and  that  this 
connection  should  quite  naturally  come  to  be  thought  of  in 
terms  of  relationship.  The  theory  of  descent  from  the  totem 
is  quite  possibly,  then,  merely  due  to  the  superficial  limita- 
tions in  the  primitive  man's  mode  of  thought  rather  than  to 
any  fundamental  conception  of  the  nature  or  meaning  of 
the  world.  The  idea  of  primary  importance  here  is  that 
there  is  a  power  possessed  by  different  groups  of  people 
in  connection  with  certain  animals  or  plants,  and  that 
through  the  medium  of  this  common  power  the  people  can 
exercise  a  control  over  the  natural  objects.  This  seems 
to  the  present  writer  to  be  a  fair  statement,  on  the  sur- 
face, of  the  situation  among  the  Central  Australian  tribes 
described  by  Spencer  and  Gillen.  Passing  beyond  the  direct 
warrant  of  their  narrative,  the  hypothesis  is  here  offered  that 

*  Spencer  and  Gillen,  The  Native  Tribes^  p.  i66, 
'  Ibid.^  p.  2IO. 


THE   MYSTERIOUS   POWER  151 

the  Australian  theory  of  control  over  the  totem  plant  or  animal 
through  Intichiuma  ceremonies  is  but  an  aspect  of  a  vague, 
perhaps  only  half-conscious  (because  unformulated)  theory 
that  a  potency  of  some  sort  is  present  in  nature  analogous  to 
wakondaj  manitou,  or  mana.  At  any  rate  each  totem  group 
believes  itself  to  be  in  peculiar  rapport  with  the  force  present 
in  the  totemic  ancestor  and  continuing  in  its  particular  class  of 
plant  or  animal  at  the  present  day.  Dr.  Frazer^s  original  defi- 
nition of  a  totem  is  apparently  in  entire  accord  with  the  view 
here  presented,  i.e.  *'A  totem  is  a  class  of  material  objects 
which  a  savage  regards  with  superstitious  respect,  believing 
that  there  exists  between  him  and  every  member  of  the  class  an 
intimate  and  altogether  special  relation."  ^  This  special  rela- 
tion, in  the  case  of  the  Australian,  would  seem  to  be  that  the 
individuals  and  their  totems  possess  in  a  measure  the  same 
potency,  that  they  are  together  manitou,  the  Algonkin  would 
probably  say.  Hence  the  members  of  a  totem,  by  an  exercise 
of  the  potency  possessed  by  them  through  appropriate  ceremo- 
nies, can  induce  a  similar  activity  of  the  same  power  residing  in 
the  animal  or  plant.  They  seem  to  think  of  the  existence  of 
the  plant  or  animal  as  due  in  some  way  to  this  agency  but  not 
possessing  it  as  a  spirit.  Hence,  if  a  man  has  control  over 
the  same  potency  or  owns  some  of  it  himself,  he  may  very 
logically  assume  that  he  can,  through  it,  produce  an  increase  in 
the  totem  object,  whose  existence  he  assumes  to  be  already 
dependent  upon  the  power  in  question.  Such,  at  any  rate, 
seems  to  be  a  possible  theory  of  the  Australian  ceremonies 
for  increasing  the  supply  of  the  totem  objects  if  it  be  granted 
that  the  natives  have  some  working  concept  of  an  impersonal 
potency  in  nature  which  may  be  tapped  by  especially  qualified 
individuals  or  societies. 
This  view  of  the  matter  helps  us  to  see  how  the  native  may 

*  Totemism,  p.  i. 


152  DEVELOPMENT  OF  RELIGION 

properly  eat,  to  a  certain  extent,  of  his  totem,  for  this  totem 
is  not  an  animal  related  to  him  in  the  same  sense  in  which 
certain  individuals  in  the  tribe  are  related  to  him.  He  and  his 
totem  simply  possess  or  are  in  rapport  with  a  common  power. 
Hence  there  could  be  no  fear  of  eating  it,  as  there  might  be  were 
it  regarded  as  a  deity  or  even  as  genuinely  akin  to  himself. 
In  fact,  Spencer  and  Gillen  tell  us  that  the  relation  is  not,  as 
some  previous  observers  have  assumed, '  one  of  mutual  respect 
and  protection.*  On  the  hypothesis  here  presented,  this  is 
precisely  what  we  should  expect.  The  relation  of  the  native 
to  his  totem  is  altogether  a  practical  one.  He  does  not  wor- 
ship it  nor  seek  to  protect  it  from  his  fellows.  He  simply 
believes  he  possesses,  in  common  with  it,  a  particular  power 
which  he  can  turn  to  useful  account,  that  is,  that  he  can  so 
manipulate  it  as  to  cause  the  numbers  of  the  totem  to  increase.* 
An  examination  of  the  details  of  the  Intichiuma  ceremonies 
still  further  confirms  our  theory.  Thus  the  men  of  the 
witchetty-grub  totem,  in  the  course  of  their  ceremony,  visited 
spots  where  there  were  rocks  supposed  to  represent  the  adult 
animal  and  its  eggs.  These  were  sung  over  and  struck  with 
twigs,  the  leader  also  touching  the  men  with  one  of  the  stones. 
They  likewise  visited  a  spot  where  their  ancestor  is  supposed 
to  have  been  in  the  habit  of  preparing  and  eating  these  same 
grubs.  Here,  again,  they  struck  the  rocks  and  sang  to  the  ani- 
mal to  lay  many  eggs.  Here  also  there  is  supposed  to  be  buried 
a  large  stone  representing  the  adult  animal.  Thus,  the  na- 
tives of  this  totem  go  through  various  movements  which  they 
suppose  their  ancestors  made.  They  visit  a  number  of  holes, 
each  of  which  contains  a  stone  representing  the  chrysalis 
stage  of  the  grub.   These  are  sung  over,  handled,  and  cleaned. 

*  The  theory  does  not,  of  course,  explain  just  why  he  may  eat  only  spar- 
ingly of  it,  but  this  might  be  due  to  a  variety  of  incidental  causes  without  the 
hypothesis  being  rendered  in  the  least  doubtful. 


THE   MYSTERIOUS   POWER  153 

In  the  course  of  these  proceedings  they  make  various  move- 
ments which  are  doubtless  imitative  of  some  stage  in  life 
of  the  grub,  accompanying  the  same  with  songs  to  the  same 
effect.  All  these  things,  and  many  others  that  might  equally 
well  have  been  mentioned,  suggest  that  the  natives  are  trying 
by  suggestive  acts  and  by  singing  to  arouse  or  exercise  the 
potency  in  themselves  so  that  it  will  exert  itself  in  the  multi- 
plication of  the  grubs. 

From  every  point  of  view  we  find  the  Australians  possessed 
of  practices  and  beliefs  which  seem  to  presuppose  this  con- 
ception of  the  world  as  in  some  way  alive  or  charged  with 
mysterious  force.  There  is  a  suggestion  of  it  in  the  various 
beliefs  connected  with  the  local  totem  centres.  These  are 
places  where  the  careless  must  beware.  Woman  especially 
must  be  careful,  since  one  of  the  spirit  individuals  which 
swarm  in  these  places  may  enter  her,  seeking  reincarnation. 
The  churinga,  or  bull-roarers,  associated  with  the  totems 
and  with  each  individual,  are  certainly  regarded  as  endowed 
with  some  mystic  power  (magic,  Frazer  would  say).  This 
power  is  believed  to  attach  also  to  the  holes  in  which 
these  bull-roarers  are  kept  hidden.  The  young  man  must 
undergo  many  ceremonials  and  endure  long  probation  be- 
fore being  allowed  to  look  upon  these  sacred  spots.  ^  These 
preliminary  observances  for  the  novice  are  suggestive  to  the 
reader  as  expedients  to  purify  or  fortify  the  body  of  the  novice 
that  he  may  withstand  or  endure  the  mysterious  influences 
with  which  he  then  for  the  first  time  comes  in  contact.  The 
manner  of  dealing  with  these  sacred  objects,  handling  them, 
loaning  them  to  other  groups  or  tribes,  all  convey  the  impres- 
sion that  the  native  believes  that  they  are  endowed  with  a 
potency  of  some  sort.  In  borrowing  the  churinga  of  a  neigh- 
boring group,  the  natives  think  they  will  be  benefited  in  some 

^  Spencer  and  Gillen,  Vol.  I,  p.  139. 


154  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

way.  "  A  group  is  anxious  to  have  in  its  possession  for  a  time 
a  large  number  (of  churinga),  with  the  general  idea  that  it  will 
in  some  vague  and  undefined  way  bring  them  good  fortune. "  ^ 
But  enough  for  the  Australians.  Possibly  an  undue  amount 
of  space  has  been  devoted  to  them.  The  unanalyzed  term 
*  magical '  has,  however,  been  applied  so  indiscriminately  to 
everything  connected  with  this  race,  that  it  has  seemed  worth 
while  to  examine  their  beliefs  and  customs  from  the  point  of 
view  of  this  other  'concept,'  so  widely  current  among  the 
natural  races. 

It  is  possible  that  this  'concept'  of  the  mystic  potency  was 
really  one  of  the  dominant  elements  in  the  native  religion 
of  the  Romans.  As  was  stated  in  the  preceding  chapter, 
scholars  generally  have  recognized  that  their  primitive  reli- 
gion was  quite  lacking  in  the  definite  personal  coloring 
which  renders  the  religion  of  Greece  so  attractive.  It  is 
only,  however,  when  the  religious  ideas  of  the  Romans 
are  examined  in  the  light  of  the  ethnic  religions  at  pres- 
ent extant  that  we  gain  a  suggestion  of  the  true  signifi- 
cance of  this  deficiency  in  personality.  To  be  sure,  the 
Roman  deities  did  develop  more  or  less  personality,  but 
there  is  much  in  the  accounts  we  have  of  the  festivals 
and  ceremonials  to  suggest  that  the  original  attitude  tow- 
ard them  was  very  much  like  that  of  some  present-day 
races  toward  the  'mystic  potence.'  The  various  objects 
of  attention  in  primitive  Roman  life  were  thought  of  as  being 
the  seat  of  imperfectly  defined  powers  of  some  sort.  Thus  the 
hearth  fire,  the  doorway,  cross-roads,  had  their  numina,  in 
each  case  a  vague,  semi-personal  '  presence '  of  some  sort. 
The  performance  of  vocations,  such  as  that  of  agriculture, 
was  thought  to  be  possible  only  through  the  assistance  of 
unseen,  mysterious  powers,  and  at  different  seasons  of  the 

*  Spencer  and  Gillen,  Vol.  I,  p.  159. 


THE   MYSTERIOUS   POWER  155 

year  such  powers  were  especially  manifest  and  had  to  be  dealt 
with  through  appropriate  ceremonials.* 

Not  merely  in  the  case  of  the  Roman  but  also  in  that  of 
many  other  religions  of  antiquity  do  we  find  much  that  is 
suggestive  of  this  same  ^  concept. '  Thus,  sacred  objects  and 
sacred  places  in  primitive  Semitic  religion  are  not  always 
associated  with  deities  and  personal  spirits.  In  fact,  the 
*  holy  place '  may  have  its  sanctity  prior  to  and  quite  indepen- 
dently of  any  association  of  a  deity  with  the  place.^  It 
seems  also  probable  that  the  elaborate  system  of  Chaldean 
magic  ^  was  based  upon  this  same  belief  in  a  mechanical 
potency.  In  the  case  of  the  Greeks,  the  concept  of  personality 
was  so  strong  that  we  find  little  if  any  trace  of  the  'mystic 
potency'  in  their  historic  religion.  If,  however,  we  could 
get  back  of  the  Olympian  pantheon,  we  might  find  a  substrate 
of  belief  similar  in  character  to  that  which  has  here  concerned 
us.    Thus  Farnell  says,  "The  aboriginal  Greek  may  have 

^  Fowler,  Roman  Festivals,  p.  335.  We  may  be  permitted  to  repeat  in  this 
connection  a  quotation  from  Fowler,  given  in  the  preceding  chapter,  for  its 
signii&cance  is  greatly  enhanced  when  read  in  the  light  of  what  has  gone  before 
in  this  chapter.  *'  In  the  oldest  festivals  the  deities  are  either  altogether  doubt- 
ful, or  so  wanting  in  clearness  and  prominence  as  to  be  altogether  subordinate 
in  interest  to  the  details  of  the  ceremony.  Here  is  good  evidence  of  the  in- 
distinctness of  the  divine;  the  cult  appealed  to  the  people  as  the  practical 
method  of  obtaining  their  desires,  but  the  unseen  powers  with  whom  they  dealt 
in  this  cult  were  beyond  their  ken,  often  unnamed,  and  only  visible  in  the  sense 
of  being  seated  in,  or  in  some  sort  symbolized  by,  tree  or  stone  or  animal "  (p.  337, 
op.  cit.) .  For  this  suggestion  regarding  the  analogue  of  the  Roman  religion  and 
that  of  modern  savage  concepts  of  the  *  impersonal  force, '  the  present  writer  is 
especially  indebted  to  an  article  by  E.  A.  R.  Haigh,  Contemporary  Review, 
Vol.  XCIII,  No.  505,  pp.  32  fif. 

'  W.  R.  Smith,  Religion  of  the  Semites,  2d  ed..  Chap.  IV,  especially  p.  155. 
Possibly  we  here  read  into  Smith  something  he  does  not  mean,  but  his  data 
strongly  suggest  the  view  here  taken.  See  also  Lyall,  Asiatic  Studies,  ist  series, 
p.  16. 

*  For  an  account  of  which,  see  Jastrow's  Religion  ofBabylohia  and  Assyria, 
Boston,  1898. 


156  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

regarded  the  mountain,  the  sky,  or  the  stone  as  sentient, 
possessed  with  power  [italics  ours]  to  help  him  or  hurt  him, 
and  may  have  tried  to  appease  it  with  certain  rites,  without 
believing  in  a  definite  and  clearly  conceived  person  who  lived 
in  the  sky  or  in  the  mountain. "  ^ 

In  the  preceding  pages  the  attempt  has  been  made  to  illus- 
trate how  widespread  among  ethnic  races  is  the  notion  of  a 
*  power, '  or  potency,  as  the  basis  of  all  natural  phenomena ; 
that  it  is  so  vaguely  conceived,  in  most  cases,  as  to  be  scarcely 
describable  as  a  personal  agency  of  any  sort ;  that  it  is  rather 
thought  of  as  impersonal  and  even  quasi-mechanical.  We 
do  not  question  but  that  this  unformulated  hypothesis  of  the 
savage  lies  at  the  basis  of  his  so-called  magical  practices.  The 
point  is  rather  that,  for  a  clear  understanding  of  the  primitive 
attitude,  which  is,  in  current  discussions,  classified  in  part  under 
the  category  of  magic  and  in  part  under  that  of  religion,  there 
is  need  to  grasp  this  idea  by  itself  as  the  savage's  basic  point 
of  view.  It  contributes  in  a  certain  way  to  the  development  of 
both  religion  and  magic,  but  it  is  not  the  entire  substance  of 
either  one  of  them,  ^eligiofi-ift^jrimarily  the  expression  of  a^ 
valuationalxQDSciou^ess,  in  the  building  up  of  whichj_as  w,£__ 

^nctrmi-anrl  tidbit  play  imports nf  pnrts  In  the 
working  out  of  values  and  in  the  adjustments  made  in  recog- 
nition of  them,  —  or  for  their  conservation,  as  Hoffding  might 
say,  —  the  notion  of  a  superior  potency  in  nature  would  be 
interwoven  as  part  and  parcel  of  the  primitive  mode  of  thought. 
The  same  valuational  consciousness  might  utilize  the  idea  of 
this  potency  either  as  vaguely  impersonal  or  as  the  effect  of 
conscious  will.  The  fact  that  most  of  the  highly  developed 
religions  postulate  superior  personal  agencies  of  some  sort 
does  not  mean  that  they  have  abandoned  as  inadequate  the 
vaguer  impersonal  view,  but  rather  that  the  older  view  has 

» CuUs  of  the  Greek  States,  Vol.  I,  p.  4. 


THE   MYSTERIOUS   POWER  157 

been  modified  or  has  been  given  different  expression  by  some 
modification,  internal  or  external,  of  the  social  groups  con- 
cerned. Magic,  on  the  other  hand,  is  not  something  cruder, 
more  primitive,  than  religion,  involving  a  different  working 
hypothesis,  but  is  rather  a  set  of  practices  or  expedients  ex- 
pressing a  different  psychical  attitude,  a  different  point  of 
view,  in  the  development  of  which  the  same  concept  of 
primitive  philosophy  and  the  higher  theory  of  personal, 
spiritual  agencies  seem  to  have  been  equally  available  and 
useful.  At  any  rate  the  theory  of  an  impersonal  power  is 
no  more  exclusively  used  by  magic  than  is  that  of  personal 
agencies  by  religion.  In  every  case  it  is  the  subjective  point  of 
view  thus  finding  expression  that  determines  the  practice  as 
magical  or  as  religious.  To  be  sure,  this  difference  in  point  of 
view  can  never  be  fully  determined,  and  doubtless  one  is  often 
fused  with  the  other,  but  this  should  not  lead  us  to  fall  back 
upon  objective  differentia  which  make  no  pretence  of  taking 
into  account  the  subjective  point  of  view. 

We  may  now  turn  our  attention  to  the  problem  of  the  con- 
ditions which  could  conceivably  have  given  rise  to  such  *  con- 
cepts '  as  those  of  manitou,  orenda,  or  mana.  It  seems  natural 
to  us,  at  first  thought,  that  primitive  people  should  have  origi- 
nally viewed  the  world  in  terms  of  personal  agency.  The  other 
*  concept'  appears  too  abstract;  it  seems  to  presuppose  too 
much  antecedent  reflection  to  admit  of  its  being  regarded  a^s 
a  truly  primitive  mode  of  thought.  We  should  remember, 
however,  that  personal  agencies  can  scarcely  have  been  pos- 
tulated of  nature  by  people  hardly  conscious  of  any  definite 
personality  in  themselves.  The  first  attitude  of  the  little  child 
toward  the  strange  and  startling  is  a  sort  of  biological  'take 
care, '  or  *  watch  out. '  We  venture  the  assertion  that  if  he 
attributes  a  personal  power  to  the  inanimate  object,  it  is  at  the 
more  or  less  unconscious  suggestion  of  the  sophisticated  adult. 


158  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

It  seems  to  the  present  writer  that  the  savage  at  first  would  be 
likewise  more  apt  to  assume  the  *  watch-out'  attitude  toward 
things  about  him  than  to  suppose  them  possessed  of  spirits. 
He  was  surrounded  by  objects  which  affected  him  more  or 
less  for  good  or  ill.  What  they  might  contain  or  might  be, 
ultimately,  he  probably  did  not  stop  to  say  to  himself  had  he 
been  able  to  do  so.  They  simply  demanded  of  him  caution. 
If  he  were  wise  or  circumspect,  he  might  use  them  to  advantage ; 
if  not,  he  might  expect  to  be  injured.  As  far  as  he  could  at  first 
generalize,  he  would  simply  say,  *  there  are  things,  places,  ani- 
mals, that  I  must  watch  out  for. '  As  far  as  his  own  attitude 
was  concerned,  he  would  scarcely  need  to  state  the  matter 
more  definitely,  but  in  comtnunicating  his  attitude  to  others  he 
might  find  it  easiest  to  Ay,  'That  animal  is  manitou^^  or,  'This 
stone  is  or  has  mana£  that  is,  there  is  something  unusual  about 
them ;  they  have  a  potency  that  some  other  things  do  not  seem 
to  have.  The  following  statement  by  Major  Leonard,  allow- 
ing something  for  its  rhetorical  tone,  probably  states  very 
fairly  the  conditions  productive  of  the  attitude  here  described. 
Writing  of  the  Niger  valley  native,  he  says :  "To  him  Nature 
was  the  work  of  something  invisible,  or  something  human, 
yet  not  human,  that  he  could  not  see,  but  that  he  could  feel 
as  he  felt  the  wind  soughing  through  the  tangled  foliage, 
an  invisible  presence,  as  it  were,  a  breath  or  a  vapor,  similar 
to  that  which  he  felt  filled  him.  ...  It  is  not  the  beauty, 
it  is  not  so  much  the  greatness  and  grandness,  and  not  even  the 
immensity  of  Nature,  that  appeals  to  or  impresses  the  savage. 
Rather  it  is  her  proximity  to  him,  a  proximity  fraught  with  evil, 
danger,  and  death,  that  fills  him  with  awe.  It  is  her  kinship, 
her  oneness,  so  to  speak,  with  him  that  impresses  him  with 
reverence.  .  .  .  Therefore  it  was  not  only  on  the  face  of  the 
waters,  but  on  a  grass  or  shrub-covered  expanse  as  well  as  over 
the  leafy  and  uneven  surface  of  the  forest,  that  he  saw  stealing. 


THE   MYSTERIOUS   POWER  159 

if  not  as  embodied  form,  at  least  in  a  materialized  if  shapeless 
shape,  what  to  him  was  some  vast  and  mysterious  power. ''  ^ 
Similarly  Howitt,  writing  of  the  Iroquois,  says  that,  since 
activity  is  usually  accompanied  by  sounds  of  some  sort,  "it 
followed  naturally  that  noises  or  sounds  were  interpreted  to 
be  the  certain  evidence  of  the  putting  forth  of  such  mystic  po- 
tence  to  effect  some  purpose.  .  .  .  The  speech  and  utterance 
of  birds  and  beasts,  the  soughing  of  the  wind,  the  voices  of  the 
night,  the  moaning  of  the  tempest,  the  wild  creaking  and 
cracking  of  wind-rocked  and  frost-riven  trees,  lakes,  and  rivers, 
and  the  multiple  other  sounds  and  noises  in  nature  were  con- 
ceived to  be  chanting  the  dirges  and  songs  of  the  various 
bodies  ...  in  the  use  and  exercise  of  their  mystic  potence."  ^ 
Not  merely  did  the  wind  and  various  natural  phenomena 
connected  with  it  impress  the  natural  man  with  the  idea  of 
a  pervading  power ;  his  attention  was  also  attracted  by  cer- 
tain animals,  whose  strength  or  fleetness  so  much  surpassed 
his  own,  or  who  were  apparently  weak  and  insignificant, 
and  yet  by  cunning  or  by  their  very  insignificance  escaped 
their  enemies.  The  Eskimo  of  Cumberland  Sound  believe  in' 
the  extraordinary  powers  of  animals,  those  of  the  sea,  in  par- 
ticular, being  endowed  with  powers  greater  than  those  of 
ordinary  human  beings.^    The  animal  beliefs  of  the  North 

*  Leonard,  The  Lower  Niger  and  its  Tribes,  pp.  91-93,  London,  1906. 

^  J.  N.  B.  Howitt  in  The  American  Anthropologist,  N.  S.,  Vol.  IV,  pp.  35,  36. 

'  Franz  Boas,  Bulletin  American  Museum  of  Natural  History,  Vol.  XV, 
p.  120. 

The  following  additional  notes  regarding  the  Eskimo  attitude  toward  ani- 
mals are  interesting  in  the  light  of  the  preceding  discussion  of  this  chapter. 
Although  the  reference  to  the  belief  in  a  mystery,  or  potency,  is  not  explicit, 
the  account  suggests  something  at  least  quite  closely  akin  to  it.  One  of  the 
remarkable  powers  supposed  to  be  possessed  by  sea-animals  is  that  of  detecting 
a  man  who  has  been  in  contact  with  a  corpse.  The  dead  body  causes  everything 
that  touches  it  to  appear  dark  in  color  to  them  as  well  as  to  the  native  medicine- 
men, or  angakut,  who  likewise  have  extraordinary  powers.     Such  animals  can 


i6o  DEVELOPMENT  OF  RELIGION 

American  Indians  are  numerous  and  well  known,  and  all  of 
them  seem  to  be  spontaneous  expressions  of  the  Indian's 
feeling  for  the  wonderful  or  mysterious  in  that  department 
of  nature.  Thus  the  bear,  the  coyote,  the  raven,  the  buffalo 
are  more  or  less  widely  regarded  as  possessing  superior  powers. 
We  have  already  pointed  out  how  the  Plains  Indians  noticed 
that  the  buffalo  pawed  the  ground  in  a  peculiar  way  before 
charging  an  antagonist,  thus  sending  into  the  air  a  small 
whirlwind  of  dust,  and,  as  they  thought,  in  this  manner  arous- 
ing the  wakonda,  to  which  he  had  access,  and  which  was  typified 
by  the  whirlwind,  that  he  might  have  power  over  his  enemies. 

also  see  the  efifect  of  flowing  human  blood,  from  which  a  vapor  arises,  sur- 
rounding the  bleeding  person  and  communicating  itself  to  everything  that 
comes  in  contact  with  such  a  person.  This  vapor  and  the  dark  color  of  death 
are  very  distasteful  to  such  animals,  and  they  avoid  a  hunter  thus  affected. 
On  these  grounds  the  Eskimo  explain  their  hunting  taboos.  In  this  series  of 
beliefs  the  idea  that  death  and  blood  set  free  a  certain  'contagion'  seems  quite 
clear.  From  these  illustrations  it  would  not  appear  that  these  Eskimo  have 
reached  the  height  of  some  of  the  Indians  in  conceiving  of  a  single  abstract  force, 
or  manitou,  but  that  they  have  possibly  the  more  primitive  idea  that  some 
animals  have  remarkable  powers  and  that  some  things,  such  as  dead  bodies 
and  blood,  must  be  dealt  with  cautiously.  When  one  has  broken  a  taboo,  he 
is  expected  to  confess  to  his  fellows,  that  they  may  take  the  precaution  of 
avoiding  him  and  not  becoming  infected.  The  extraordinary  qualities  of  the 
angakiU  cause  him  to  shine  with  a  bright  light  (not  visible  to  every  one,  of 
course)  which  gives  him  unusual  powers  of  vision,  makes  him  feel  well  (cf. 
the  experience  of  the  Algonkin  on  coming  from  the  sweat  lodge  with  his  body 
cleansed  by  manitou),  is  felt  as  a  pressure  within,  always  guides  him,  and 
leaves  his  body  at  death.  In  the  same  ways  these  Eskimo  believe  that  people 
with  deranged  minds  have  supernatural  powers.  Birth  as  well  as  death  is 
associated  with  exhalations,  or  vapors,  against  which  one  must  be  on  his 
guard.  So  also  they  fear  menstruating  women,  and  those  who  have  suffered 
a  miscarriage.     (Cf.  Boas,  op.  cit.) 

In  all  those  cases  it  is  to  be  noted  that  the  power  is  not  associated  with 
spirits,  although  the  Eskimo  have  spirit  beliefs.  It  seems  to  the  present  writer 
that  the  spirit  beliefs  of  these  peoples,  as  well  as  those  of  the  Australians,  the 
Melanesians,  and  possibly  others,  betray  no  intrinsic  relation  to  the  potency- 
idea.  There  is  nothing  to  indicate  that  the  spirit  agencies  are  personified 
'magic  powers.*  ^ 


THE   MYSTERIOUS   POWER  l6i 

The  wind  in  this  case  seems  to  be  the  primary  object  of  wonder 
to  the  Indian.  The  whirlwind  suggests  to  him  in  some  way 
"  the  subjective  experience  of  a  confused  state  of  mind.  When 
a  man  loses  his  presence  of  mind,  he  is  said  to  have  been  over- 
come by  the  power  of  the  whirlwind.  As  this  misfortune  often 
befell  a  man  in  battle,  it  became  the  prayer  of  the  Indian  that 
the  minds  of  his  enemies  should  be  confused."  Similarly 
''the  Dakota  believe  that  there  is  a  close  relation  between  the 
whirlwind  and  the  fluttering  wings  of  a  moth.  The  cocoon  is 
regarded  as  the  bundle  or  mysterious  object  from  which  a 
power  similar  to  that  of  the  whirlwind  emanates.  I  was 
told  that  the  observed  facts  as  to  the  emergence  of  the  moth 
from  this  bundle  were  in  themselves  evidence  of  the  sacred 
character  of  the  moth  because  it  could  escape  from  an  enclos- 
ure. Like  the  wind,  it  could  not  be  confined.  It  represents, 
from  that  point  of  view,  the  kind  of  power  desired  by  the 
Indian ;  viz.  to  be  intangible,  invisible,  and  destructive  like  the 
wind."  In  explanation,  the  Indians  hold  that "  there  is  a  deep 
mystery  in  the  wind,  since  it  is  intangible  and  visible  only  in : 
its  effects.  The  moth,  by  its  wings,  reproduced  the  phenome-  * 
non  of  the  whirlwind,  or  received  from  it  power  to  rise  in  the 
air.  Then  all  the  other  mysterious  acts  of  the  moth  were  ex- 
plained by  its  rapport  with  this  power."  The  symbol  of 
the  cocoon  carved  on  various  implements,  or  even  the  cocoon 
itself  carried  about,  "is  regarded  as  a  perpetual  prayer  to 
the  power  of  the  whirlwind."-^  Many  variations  and  further 
aspects  of  this  belief  might  be  noted.  They  help  us  to  see  the 
simple  ways  in  which  the  Indian's  wonderment  is  excited,  and 
with  it  the  belief  in  a  pervading  mysterious  power.  The 
attitude  toward  the  moth  and  the  buffalo  suggests  to  what 
intricate  degrees  the  fundamental  belief  in  an  undefined 

*  Clark  Wissler,   "  The  whirlwind  and  the  elk  in  the  mythology  of  the 
Dakota,"  The  Journal  of  American  Folklore,  Vol.  XVIII,  pp.  258  fif. 


i62  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

power  may  develop,  and  the  curious  connections  that  it  may 
acquire. 

From  observations  in  quite  a  different  quarter  of  the  world, 
Leonard  illustrates  the  same  primitive  awe  of  animals  by  the 
negro's  attitude  toward  the  tortoise.  It  is  an  animal  whose 
many  characteristics  appeal  to  the  Niger  Tribes.  It  has  few 
enemies,  does  not  try  to  get  away,  merely  withdraws  into  its 
shell,  seems  to  be  able  to  exist  for  a  long  time  without  food. 
Add  to  this  immunity  its  habitual  silence,  its  sedentary  habits, 
the  extreme  slowness  of  its  movements,  its  natural  instinct 
to  keep  out  of  sight,  and  we  see  why  the  savage  regards  it  as  a 
peculiarly  mysterious  and  therefore  intelligent  creature,  the 
possessor  of  spirit-power  of  some  sort.^ 

When  the  idea  of  this  potency  is  once  acquired  from  some 
striking  object  or  situation,  it  is  easy  to  see  that  it  would  grad- 
ually assume  the  function  of  a  general  explanatory  concept, 
or  rather  that  the  natural  man  would  more  and  more  carry 
with  him  into  new  situations  and  experiences  this  habitual 
frame  of  mind.  Thus,  among  these  same  negroes,  implements 
are  treated  with  great  care,  and  as  fully  entitled  to  respect, 
altogether  apart  from  their  domestic  or  outside  uses.  In 
this  way  the  farmer  has  the  greatest  veneration  for  his  farm 
implements,  as  has  also  the  fisherman  for  his  nets,  the  trader 
for  his  measures  and  goods,  and  fisherman  and  trader  both  for 
their  paddles,  and  the  hunter  for  his  bows,  arrows,  and  guns. 
.  .  .  Each  individual  one  of  them  possesses  a  soul  of  its  owp. 
that,  in  the  eyes  of  the  negro,  gives  it  a  special  and  peculiar^ 
significance.^  We  venture  the  suggestion  that  these  so-called 
spirits  of  the  implements  are  at  least  analogous,  if  not  iden- 
tical, with  the  'undefined  potency'  of  some  other  peoples. 

»  Leonard,  op.  cU.,  pp.  314-315- 

*  Ibid.,  p.  310,  condensed.     Sir  Charles  Lyall,  Asiatic  Studies,  ist  series, 
p.  16,  notes  the  same  veneration  of  utensils  in  India. 


THE   MYSTERIOUS   POWER  163 

These  various  articles  are  the  means  of  their  owners'  liveli- 
hood, and  hence,  to  them,  must  be  the  vehicles  of  some  more 
or  less  hidden  powers.  It  would  be  easy  for  a  civilized  man  to 
imagine  that  this  veneration  is  for  definitely  conceived  spirits, 
when  it  may  be  merely  a  variation  of  the  general  attitude  of 
wonderment  which  probably  is  often  entirely  unformulated, 
or,  if  formulated  at  all,  under  the  questioning  of  the  white 
man,  tends  to  be  stated  in  the  terms  which  he,  perhaps  unin- 
tentionally, suggests. 

Enough  has  perhaps  been  said  regarding  the  primitive  char- 
acter, wide  prevalence,  and  possible  origin  of  the  'concept' 
of  a  quasi-mechanical,  impersonal  force  in  nature.  With  vari- 
ations more  or  less  important,  it  seems  to  prevail  so  widely  in 
savage  philosophy  that  some  explicit  account  should  be  taken 
of  it  in  all  discussions  of  magic,  primitive  religion,  customs,  and 
morality  generally.  We  do  not  believe  it  can  be  held  to  be  in 
itself  a  religious  concept.  It  is  rather  a  point  of  view  or  theory 
of  the  world  which  may  or  may  not  be  used  by  religion,  a 
'  concept '  which  may  play  into  the  hands  of  magic  as  well  as 
into  those  of  religion.  It  is  a  part  of  the  raw  material  which, 
along  with  much  else,  may  enter  into  the  developed  religious 
consciousness.  The  part  it  is  possible  for  it  to  play  may  be 
seen  best  in  certain  aspects  of  the  development  of  the  idea  of 
divine  personages.  A  deity,  we  may  remark,  is  probably  not 
originally  an  abstract  power  personified,  but  rather  an  actual 
person  who  has  unusual  control  over  this  power.  A  deity, 
however,  could  not  spring  from  this  condition  alone.  There 
are  other  important  factors  to  be  taken  into  account.  To  the 
discussion  of  these  and  related  problems  we  shall  turn  in  the 
following  chapter. 

It  would  be  easy,  if  time  permitted,  to  find  many  survivals 
of  the  primitive  point  of  view  in  the  folk-beliefs  and  even  reli- 
gion of  modern  culture  races.     The  belief  in  luck,  so  widely 


/ 


1 64  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

prevalent  among  Teutonic  peoples/  is  possibly  akin  to  it. 
According  to  this  belief,  there  is  something  undeterminable 
about  nature.     One  may  try  ever  so  hard  and  exercise  all  the 
dictates  of  common  sense,  and  yet  things  will  go  against  him, 
while  another  may  not  try  in  the  least,  and  yet  he  may  chance  to 
attain  the  very  best  of  fortune.     The  widely  prevalent  belief 
in  charms  and  amulets,  especially  among  the  more  ignorant 
of  modern  Catholics,  contains   essentially   the   same   idea. 
Likewise    the    present-day    ^revivalist'    who    *  agonizes'    in 
prayer  for  the  '  power '  to  come  down  that  he  may  have  much 
success  in  'winning  souls'  makes  use  of  the  same  primitive 
philosophy,  even  though  he  frequently  personifies  the  potency 
in  terms  of  the  Holy  Spirit.     That  is  to  say,  in  spite  of  the 
apparent  personification,  the  mental  attitude  involved  is  the 
same  as  that  of  the  Indian  who  seeks  rapport  with  wakonda, 
A  little  reflection  upon  modern  life  would  show  that  all  of  us  ^ 
easily  drop  back  into  this  naive,  primitive  mode  of  thought,  ^ 
according  to  which  we  are  prone  to  feel  that  things  may  come    ^ 
to  pass  notwithstanding  natural  law  or  our  own  personal    ; 
capacities. 

*  Cf.  Sumner,  Folkways,  pp.  6,  et  seq. 


CHAPTER  VII 

MAGIC  AND  RELIGION 

The  essential  nature  of  the  religious  attitude  will  be  made 
clearer  by  contrasting  and  relating  it  to  the  point  of  view 
expressed  in  magic.  We  do  not  believe  that  magic  can,  in 
all  cases,  be  sharply  differentiated  from  religion.  The  vari- 
eties of  each  are  innumerable  because  the  conditions  under 
which  they  appear  vary  indefinitely;  but  if  we  take  extreme 
cases,  there  seems  to  be  quite  a  difference  of  mental  attitude 
involved  in  the  one  and  in  the  other. 

(In  order  to  get  at  this  difference,  we  may  conveniently 
start  with  an  examination  of  Frazer's  conceptjon^Jhat  magic 
represents  a  more  primitive  method  of  thought  than  does 
religion.^  His  contention  is  that  magic  preceded  religion,  and 
was  gradually  given  up  in  favor  of  the  latter  as  its  value  was 
little  by  little  discredited.  Lang  expresses  rather  baldly  the 
theory  put  forth  by  Frazer  thus:  *'Have  not  men  attempted 
to  secure  weather,  and  everything  else  to  their  desire  by  magic, 
before  they  invented  gods  and  prayed  to  them  for  what  magic, 
as  they  learned  by  experience,  failed  to  provide?"  ^ 

If  we  may  be  permitted  to  construct  a  picture  of  primi- 
tive man  on  the  basis  of  Frazer's  suggestions,  we  would  find 
something  like  the  following :  He  must  have  been  a  man  with 
developed  intellectual  interests,  in  fact,  with  as  good  an  equip- 
ment of  intellectual  attitudes  as  are  possessed  by  an  English- 
man of  fair  education  at  the  present  day,  but  along  with  all  this 

^  See,  for  instance,  The  Golden  Bough,  in  which  his  views  are  presented  in 
greatest  detail. 

^  Andrew  Lang,  Magic  and  Religion,  p.  47. 

16S 


1 66  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

a  total  ignorance  of  the  world  in  which  it  was  his  fate  to 
work  out  his  salvation.  His  condition  was  apparently  such  as 
would  be  that  of  a  fairly  intelligent  man  introduced  from  no- 
where into  our  universe,  having  all  our  keen  intellectual  in- 
terests and  active  impulses,  but  entirely  at  sea  as  to  where  and 
how  to  begin  to  act.  Hence  he  would  of  necessity  make  many 
mistakes  and  would  only  gradually  learn  fruitful  methods 
and  come  to  discard  useless  ones.  As  primitive  man  looked 
abroad  upon  the  world,  he  conceived  it  as  composed,  for  one 
thing,  of  various  material  objects  and  of  a  variety  of  forces  and 
activities.  He  also  peopled  his  world  at  a  very  early  period, 
if  not  at  the  very  first,  with  some  sort  of  spiritual  beings  (ap- 
parently not  spiritual  agencies).  From  Frazer's  discussion, 
it  seems  that  he  regards  this  hypothesis  of  spirits  as  coincident 
with  man's  first  dealings  with  his  mysterious  world.  Just 
why  he  should  then  have  imagined  there  were  spirits  is  not 
clear,  for  he  had  no  use  for  them  at  first.  However,  as  he  I 
continued  to  live  in  such  a  world,  this  hypothetical  man  soon 
discovered  that  it  was  to  his  interest  to  manipulate  its  objects 
and  forces  in  various  ways.  But  he  did  not  turn  at  first  to  the 
spirits  for  assistance.  From  the  earliest  times  he  sought 
general  rules  whereby  to  turn  the  order  of  natural  phenomena 
to  his  advantage.  Under  the  stimulus  of  this  impulse  he 
formulated  many  rules  of  procedure,  some  of  which  were  gol- 
den and  some  of  which  were  dross,  that  is,  some  genuine  laws 
were  discovered  and  the  beginnings  of  science  were  laid.* 
But  man's  first  mental  attitude  was  one  of  arrogant  self-confi- 
dence. He  imagined  he  could  do  anything  he  chose  with  the 
natural  forces  which  surrounded  him.  file  thought  he  had 
discovered  the  key  to  nature  in  the  generalizations,  'like 
produces  like,'  and  'that  which  has  been  once  in  contact 
with  another  thing  continues,  after  being  physically  separated 
*  The  Golden  Bough,  2d  ed.,  Vol.  I,  p.  62. 


MAGIC  AND   RELIGION  167 

from  it,  to  be  connected  with  it  in  some  very  real  wayjj  In 
putting  the  matter  thus,  we  are  certainly  not  overstepping  the 
thought  Frazer  seems  to  be  trying  to  express,  for^he  savs  that 
manjwas  on  the  alert  from  the  first  ^"^  g^Tif^^l  ru]f^9i  whprphy 
totmiinatural  phenomena  to  his  advantage,  and  that  this 
presupposition  of  mayg[ic  must  then  l^avf^  been  hi.g;  first  formula. 
However,  Frazer  says,  primitive  man  discovered  in  time 
that  he  had  been  mistaken  in  his  first  generalization.  "  Step 
by  step  he  must  have  been  driven  back  from  his  proud  position; 
foot  by  foot  he  must  have  yielded,  with  a  sigh,  the  ground 
which  he  had  once  viewed  as  his  own."  *  T]}fi  rerQgnitioTiof 
his  own  helplessness  is  supposed  to  have  carried  with  it  a 
corresponding  belief  in  the  importance  of  those  supernatural 
beings  with  which  his  imagination  peoples  the  universe.  It 
enhances  his  conception  of  their  power.  He  had,  apparently 
long  before,  thought  of  the  world  as  inhabited  by  these  supe- 
rior beings  as  well  as  by  himself,  but  they  were  not  important 
to  him  as  agencies,  at  least  he  considered  himself  their  equal. 
But  as  his  magic  fails  him,  as  he  finds  that  hejsJlQlthe^cause 
of  the  phenomena  of  nature,  of  the  storms,  of  the  sunshine,  of 
the  fulness  of  the,  harvest,  he  begins  to  attribute  the  power, 
which  he  once  supposed  he  possessed,  to  these  supernatural 
beings.  His  theorv  of  the  world  is  still  _.that  it  is  dominated 
by  conscious  agency,  although  no  longer  his  own.  If  he  is 
frail,  how  vast  and  powerful  are  the  beings  who  do  control 
the  gigantic  machinery  of  nature.  ''Thus,  as  his  old  sense 
of  equality  with  the  gods  slowly  vanishes,  he  resigns  at  the 
same  time  the  hope  of  directing  the  course  of  nature  by  his 
own  unaided  resources,  that  is,  by  magic,  and  looks  more  to 
the  gods  as  the  sole  repositories  of  those  supernatural  powers 
which  he  once  claimed  to  share  with  them.  With  the  advance 
of  knowledge,  prayer  and  sacrifice  assume  the  leading  place 

^  Ibid.,  p.  78. 


1 68  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

in  religious  ritual;  and  magic,  which  once  ranked  with  them 
as  a  legitimate  equal  (should  we  not  expect  Frazer  to  have  said 
their  superior  ?),  is  gradually  relegated  to  the  background,  and 
sinks  to  the  level  of  a  black  art  (why  not  entirely  given  up? 
we  may  ask);  it  is  regarded  as  an  encroachment,  at  once 
vain  and  impious  (why  impious?)  upon  the  domain  of  the 
gods,  and  as  such  encounters  the  steady  opposition  of  the 
priests  (i.e.  the  representatives  of  the  more  advanced  and 
intelligent  conception  of  how  to  get  along  in  the  world), 
whose  reputation  and  influence  rise  or  fall  with  those  of  their 
gods."  In  other  words,  sacrifice  and  prayer  become  the 
resource  of  the  enlightened  portion  of  the  community,  while 
magic  is  the  refuge  of  the  superstitious  and  ignorant.^  "^By 
religion,  then,"  Frazer  says,  "I  understand  a  propitiation  and 
conciliation  of  powers  superior  to  man  which  are  believed  to 
direct  and  control  the  course  of  nature  and  human  life."  ^ 
Religion  is  essentially  an  invention  coordinate  with  the 
gradual  growth  in  man  of  the  conviction  that  magic  was  ineffi- 
cacious. ''This  old  happy  confidence  in  himself  and  his 
powers  was  rudely  shaken.  He  must  have  been  sadly  per- 
plexed and  agitated  till  he  came  to  rest,  as  in  a  quiet  haven 
after  a  tempestuous  voyage,  in  a  new  system  of  faith  and 
practice.  ...  It  was  they  (i.e.  the  superior  spirits),  as  he 
now  believed,  and  not  he  himself,  who  made  the  strong  wind 
to  blow."  ^ 

Such  is  Frazer's  theory  of  the  origin  of  religion  out  of  magic. 
We  have  described  it  in  some  detail  because  it  serves  by  con- 
trast to  render  clearer  the  view  of  the  matter  here  presented. 
His  hypothesis  is  logical  and  clear  when  taken  as  a  thing  in 
itself,  but  when  taken  in  connection  with  objective  conditions 

*  Frazer,  op.  cit.,  Vol.  I,  pp.  124, 130. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  63. 

'  Ibid.,  p.  77,  condensed. 


MAGIC   AND   RELIGION  169 

it  violates,  we  believe,  almost  every  principle  of  the  psychology 
of  primitive  peoples.  It  bears  every  evidence  of  having  been 
worked  out  a  priori,  and,  when  once  possessed  of  it,  its  in- 
ventor has  persistently  seen  every  detail  of  anthropological 
science  which  has  the  slightest  connection  with  religion  or 
magic  in  its  light.  The  most  general  criticism  to  be  brought 
against  such  a  theory  is  that  it  is  too  simple  by  far  to  be 
plausible. 

That  primitive  man  imagined  he  could,  through  magical 
technique,  control  the  processes  of  nature  is  unquestionable, 
but  tnat  this  belief  came  to  him  as  a  sort  of  intellectual 
generalization  can  scarcely  be  maintained.  However  little 
we  may  know  of  primitive  man,  we  do  know  that  he  could  not 
have  had  the  same  developed  intellectual  attitudes  that  the 
modern  man  possesses.^  He  was  not  a  man  of  fully  developed 
mental  capacity  experimenting  cautiously  and  painfully  with 
a  mysterious  universe.  His  first  so-called  generalization  was 
the  direct  outcome  of  the  almost  physiological  processes  of 
habit  and  of  association.  Whatever  physical  object  or  act 
chanced  to  attract  attention  in  any  time  of  emotional  stress, 
or  when  some  other  object  or  act  was  near  the  focus  of  atten- 
tion, that  object  would  thereafter  be  thought  of  in  connection 
with  the  latter  situation.  Whenever  ideas  are  thus  associated, 
it  is  easy  to  come  to  the  belief  that  their  objective  counter- 
parts are  connected.  The  postulates  of  magic  as  well  as  of 
religion  are  in  large  measure  due  to  the  inertia  of  habit. 
Man  in  all  ages  has  been  at  the  mercy  t)f  his  associations  of 
ideas,  and,  in  fact,  has  been  able  to  free  himself  from  their 
domination  only  through  the  development  of  reflection  and 
the  critical  faculty.  Magic  and  religion  are  each,  according 
to  Frazer,  diverse  schemes  devised  by  the  primitive  man  for 

^  There  may  seem  to  be  a  discrepancy  between  this  statement  and  certain 
passages  in  Chapter  II,  supra.     It  is  only  a  superficial  one,  however. 


I70  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

the  manipulation  of  his  world  to  his  advantage.  We  main- 
tain that  they  were  both  quite  independent  of  any  conscious , 
purpose  in  their  origin,  and  that,  far  from  one's  being  sue-, 
ceeded  by  the  other,  they  are  coincident,  and  develop  from, 
different  phases  or  types  of  man's  reactions  to  his  world.  The 
present  status  of  magic  and  religion  among  primitive  races  is . 
a  refutation  of  Frazer.  They  exist  side  by  side,  nor  is  one  in 
the  hands  of  the  ignorant  and  the  other  the  possession  of  the 
more  intelligent.  Even  the  consistently  religious  man  among 
the  natural  races  believes  and  fears  magic,  even  though  he 
does  not  practise  it.  In  other  words,  even  though  he  suppli- 
cates the  gods,  he  is  firmly  convinced  that  the  methods  of 
magic  are  very  real  and  very  efficacious ;  he  has  evidently  not 
taken  up  with  the  gods  because  he  believes  magic  is  futile, 
else  why  should  he  continue  to  fear  it.  The  priest,  as  the 
representative  of  the  religion  of  the  group,  opposes  magic,  not 
because  it  is  a  manifestation  of  impious  assumption  against 
the  *  superior  spirits,'  but  because  he  thoroughly  believes  in 
and  dreads  the  power  of  the  magician.  A  still  deeper  ground 
of  the  universal  antipathy  between  religion  and  magic  will  be 
pointed  out  in  a  later  section  of  this  chapter.^  Further  evi- 
dence that  religion  ^^^Uli}.t  rif^f'<^'^'^ari]y  tajce  thfi  plnre  of 
magic  because  the  latter^cgmes  to  be  discredited  is  afforded 
ByTKrTact  that  many  of  the  natural  races,  as  the  Todas,  re- 
gard races  inferior  to  themselves  in  culture  as  especially  pow- 
erful in  magic.  If  religious  practices  arose  because  magic 
was  found  to  be  futile,  we  should  not  find  among  those  of 
primitive  culture  this  practically  universal  belief  in  the  power 
of  magic,  even  though  it  be  practised  by  comparatively  few  of 
their  number.  There  is  absolutely  no  evidence  that  the  de- 
velopment of  religion  is  coincident  with  any  decline  in  man's 
belief  in  the  reality  of  magical  agencies. 

*  p.  195,  infra. 


MAGIC  AND   RELIGION  171 

Moreover,  the  test  of  consequences  could  never  have  been 
operative  in  any  appreciable  degree.  Dr.  Frazer  surely  does 
not  think  that  prayers  and  sacrifices  succeeded  in  the  long  run 
in  turning  natural  phenomena  more  largely  to  man's  advantage 
than  did  magical  practices.  If  primitive  man  weighed  magic 
and  found  it  wanting  in  practical  consequences,  he  must 
inevitably  have  done  the  same  with  religion,  and  have  found  it 
equally  powerless  to  bring  results  when  applied  to  the  course 
of  nature  and  to  human  life.  Magic  and  religion  are  un- 
doubtedly related,  but  they  represent  within  the  social  organ- 
ism contemporaneous  growths  of  a  somewhat  different  sort.* 

We  have  pointed  out  the  practical  difficulty  in  Dr.  Frazer's 
theory  of  the  change  from  magic  to  religion.  We  wish  now 
to  consider  specifically  his  theory  of   religion.      Religion, 

*  Dr.  Frazer's  chief  card  in  support  of  his  theory  has  been  the  case  of  the 
Australians,  who  are,  so  he  claims,  still  in  the  stage  of  magic,  attempting  to 
accomplish  all  sorts  of  things  with  natural  forces  by  the  use  of  magical  rites.  It 
is  noteworthy  that  the  two  most  thoroughgoing  accounts  which  we  possess  of 
the  Australians  were  made  by  men  who  had  Frazer's  presuppositions  regarding 
magic,  and  they  acknowledge  a  certain  amount  of  cooperation  with  him  in  the 
interpretation  of  their  data.  While  this  fact  need  not  invalidate  their  positions, 
it  should  at  least  be  borne  in  mind  that  they  did  have  certain  presuppositions 
in  all  their  interpretative  work.  What  we  here  suggest  is  in  no  sense  a  reflection 
upon  the  Very  great  value  of  their  works  taken  in  their  entirety.  It  is  needless 
to  say  that  we  do  not  here  go  to  the  other  extreme,  and  maintain  with  Lan_g  that 
th§„Australians  have  well-developed  religious  ideas.  The  point  is  simply  that 
the  data  that  comes  to  us  comes  through  men  possessed  with  Frazer's  a  priori 
theory.  We  believe  that  magic  and  religion  are  to  a  certain  extent  fused  in 
Australia,  and  that,  even  though  they  appeal  to  no  spirits  in  their  ceremonies, 
these  ceremonies  do  express  valuational  attitudes  of  a  definitely  religious 
character.  In  the  constructive  portion  of  this  chapter  we  shall  discuss  the  case 
of  the  Australians  and  that  of  certain  other  anomalous  peoples.  Frazer's 
contention  that  the  Australians  have  a  magical  rather  than  a  religious  view  of 
life  is,  of  course,  the  direct  outcome  of  his  conception  of  religion  already  re- 
ferred to.  The  Australians  are  reported,  and,  we  doubt  not,  truly,  to  make  no 
sacrifices  or  prayers  to  superior  powers.  See,  however,  L.  Parker  {The 
Euahlayi  Tribe),  who  claims  that  prayers  are  addressed  to  the  'All-father'  by 
at  least  owe  section  of  the  Australian  race. 


172  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

according  to  him,  is  not  different  from  magic  except  in  its  use 
of  more  enlightened  methods  to  effect  the  same  sort  of  ends, 
magic  depending  in  part  upon  the  theory  that  like  produces 
like,  and  that  objects  once  in  contact  continue  to  be  in  contact 
in  some  mysterious  way,  even  though  separated,  and  in  part 
upon  the  belief  that  it  may  compel  spirits  to  obey  its  behests, 
while  religion  spends  its  time  in  the  more  enlightened  occupa- 
tion of  conciliating  superior  powers  by  prayer  and  sacrifice. 
We  do  not  believe  that  an  analysis  of  the  concrete  data  of  reli- 
gion, whether  primitive  or  advanced  in  form,  will  support  this 
conception.  As  we  have  before  suggested,  were  religion  a 
practical  expedient,  it  would  have  died  out,  as  magic  is  doing, 
with  the  growing  sense  of  its  inutility.  But  religion  does  not 
owe  its  existence  to  such  motives.  It  originates,  it  is  true, 
to  a  certain  extent  in  the  practical  life  of  a  people,  but  only 
when  the  stress  of  the  practical  is  less  acutely  felt,  so  that  it 
is  possible  to  survey  the  whole  in  an  appreciative  way.  It  is 
true  that  the  feelings  of  appreciation  thus  gained  may  be  car- 
ried over  and  used  in  very  pressing  and  practical  situations, 
but  the  essential  character  of  the  religious  attitude  is  not 
derived  from  the  immediate  situation  in  which  it  is  used. 
Prayer  and  sacrifice,  although  in  a  way  practical  expedients, 
are  also  just  as  truly  expressions  of  an  appreciative  disposition 
on  the  part  of  the  worshipper.  The  act  of  worship  is  never 
merely  a  means  but  is  as  truly  an  end,  carrying  with  it  its  own 
satisfactions.  It  is  the  reaction  of  the  individual  or  tribe  to 
the  most  ultimate  values  which  it  is  capable  of  conceiving. 
One  mode  of  reaction  will  in  many  cases,  to  be  sure,  merge 
with  the  other,  the  practical  and  the  appreciative  will  be 
operative  side  by  side,  but  the  attitudes  are  nevertheless  dis- 
tinct. True,  we  have  attempted  to  trace  the  development  of 
the  appreciative  out  of  the  practical,  but  even  if  our  theory 
should  seem  to  be  sustained,  it  would  not  support  Frazer's 


MAGIC   AND   RELIGION  173 

notion  of  the  relationship  of  magic  to  religion.  From  his 
point  of  view  that  relationship  is  merely  one  of  priority. 
From  the  point  of  view  here  presented,  they  are  not  two 
successive  expedients.  If  religion  in  any  sense  follows  magic, 
it  does  so  because  the  latter  has  mediated  the  development  of 
a  new  attitude,  of  conceptions  of  worthfulness  quite  beyond 
those  which  belong  to  itself. 

Jevons,  in  his  Introduction  to  the  History  of  Religion^ 
argues  for  the  originality  and  independence  of  religion  as  far 
as  magic  is  concerned,  and  in  the  same  way  disregards  the 
genetic  aspects  of  the  developments  of  experience.  He  starts 
with  practically  the  same  assumption  as  Frazer,  i.e.  that  re- 
ligion [sjag^edojCL^omp  sort  olaiLidea „oLsu^rnatoal power s, 
but  attempts.ixxdraw-from  it  opposite  conclusions.  To  prove 
his  point  he  presupposes,  in  the  peoples  of  primitive  times, 
the  differentiated  experience  of  the  culture-races.  This  pro- 
cedure is,  of  course,  unavoidable  if  one  starts  with  such 
a  definite  concept  for  one's  criterion,  for  the  concept  must  be 
given  the  setting  in  the  type  of  experience  in  which  alone  it  is 
intelligible.  Thus,  in  order  to  render  the  idea  of  the  super- 
natural intelligible,  Jevons  tells  us  that  for  the  primitive  man 
the  universe  was  like  a  vast  workshop  full  of  varied  and  com- 
plicated machinery,  that  his  needs  were  pressing,  and  he  could 
not  take  his  time] to  ''study  the  dangerous  mechanism  long 
and  faithfully  before  setting  his  hand  to  it."  ^  Action  must  be 
immediate.  Again  he  tells  us  that  for  the  savage  there  were 
'  innumerable  possible  causes '  for  what  he  saw  about  him,  and 
in  the  midst  of  which  he  was  turned  loose  with  nothing  to 
guide  his  choice  as  to  which  were  the  correct  ones.^  Concern- 
ing all  this  we  should  say  that  it  is  only  from  our  point  of  view 
that  this  position  is  'perilous'  or  the  mechanism  dangerous. 


*  Introduction  to  the  History  of  Religion^  p.  17. 
p.  33- 


» Ihid. 


174  DEVELOPMENT   OF   RELIGION 

To  the  savage  the  universe  does  not  present  itself  as  a  vast 
workshop  of  complicated  machinery  working  at  full  speed. 
It  is  no  more  complicated  to  him  than  are  the  needs  of  which 
he  is  conscious.  From  the  modern  man's  point  of  view  these 
are  multitudinous  enough,  but  for  him  they  are  certainly  few 
and  simple.  He  is  conscious  of  the  vast  and  complicated  uni- 
verse present  to  our  experience,  only  at  the  points  where  cer- 
tain food  and  danger  stimuli  and  the  like  affect  him.  (Is  it 
different  in  kind  for  us?)  It  is  as  these  necessities  are  met 
under  varying  conditions  that  other  necessities  are  brought  to 
consciousness.  Thus,  whatever  may  be  the  condition  of  the 
modern  savage,  the  truly  primitive  man  was  most  certainly  not, 
as  Jevons  suggests,  "surrounded  by  supernatural  powers  and 
a  prey  to  supernatural  terrors."  ^  Neither  need  we  suppose 
that  *  he  put  forth  his  hand  with  dread.'  The  very  recognition 
of  such  powers,  and  the  corresponding  adjustments  of  experi- 
ence, are  possible  only  in  a  stage  of  culture  that  has  departed 
far  from  its  primitive  simplicity. 

Such  are  the  difficulties  in  Jevons's  use  of  the  supernatural. 
His  point,  of  course,  is  that,  if  such  an  idea  is  present  in  the 
primitive  mind,  it  will  lead  at  once  to  worship  and  religion,  for 
no  one  would  be  foolish  enough  to  try  to  manipulate  by  magi- 
cal practices  that  which  was  already  by  definition  conceived  as 
beyond  calculation  and  control.  The  force  of  the  argument 
rests  on  the  supposition  that  the  idea  of  the  supernatural  was 
present  in  the  mind  of  the  primitive  man,  with  all  the  meaning 
and  connotation  that  it  might  have  for  us. 

Here,  again,  we  object  to  the  assumption  that  truly  primi- 
tive man  was  possessed  of  the  highly  differentiated  concepts  of 
the  present  culture-races.  Many  of  the  natural  races  of  the 
present  show  themselves  quite  deficient  in  many  concepts 
familiar  to  the  civilized  man,  and  the  primitive  man  could 

^  Introduction  to  the  History  of  Religion,  p.  35. 


MAGIC  AND   RELIGION  175 

hardly  have  been  better  off  than  the  modern  savage.  No 
doubt  from  the  earliest  times,  however,  situations  and  com- 
binations of  circumstances  presented  themselves  which  gave 
rise  to  attitudes  and  reactions  functionally  equivalent  to  cer- 
tain attitudes  of  ourselves,  so  that,  were  we  to  bear  in  mind 
the  functional  equivalents  of  the  primitive  and  the  cultural 
attitudes,  they  might  be  compared  and  even  classed  together. 
But  usually  when  the  idea  of  the  supernatural  is  attributed 
to  primitive  man,  it  is  taken  as  ordinarily  understood  to-day, 
loaded  with  a  lot  of  metaphysics  and  speculative  material 
which  it  could  scarcely  have  possessed  for  primitive  intelli- 
gence. 

The  concept  of  the  supernatural,  as  far  as  it  is  more  than 
a  mere  name,  that  is,  as  far  as  it  has  a  definite  place  in  the 
movement  of  experience,  is  much  the  same  in  all  stages  of 
culture.  It  is  a  concept  which  tends  to  appear  when  some 
set  of  conditions  interrupts  a  habitual  process  of  any  kind. 
It  is  not  necessary,  however,  that  there  should  be  any  definite 
formulation  of  the  supernatural  in  such  a  time  of  stress .  The 
attention  is  rather  focussed  upon  the  problem  of  securing  a 
more  adequate  adjustment  of  the  means,  as  they  are  under- 
stood, to  the  end  which,  for  the  time,  withstands  ordinary 
methods  of  approach.  The  point  of  interest  is  the  end  which 
cannot  be  reached  by  the  usual  expedients  rather  than  the 
expedients  themselves,  so  that  it  is  hardly  possible  for  these 
to  be  differentiated  very  specifically  into  natural  and  super- 
natural. The  idea  of  the  supernatural  is  the  extreme  develop- ' 
ment  of  certain  situations  of  tension,  not  the  immediate  re- 
sult of  them.  To  the  savage  of  to-day  the  supernatural  seems 
to  be  little  more  than  that  phase  of  a  situation  that  must  be 
treated  with  the  greatest  care,  and  it  seems  very  unlikely  that 
Jevons  is  right  in  saying  that  at  the  very  begirining  man  was 
conscious  of  a  'mysterious  power  which  was  beyond  his  cal- 


176  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

culation  and  control.'  Without  doubt  the  idea  of  such  a 
power  did  develop  in  time,  that  is,  the  notion  of  a  vague,  im- 
personal force,  similar,  possibly,  to  the  Algonkin  notion  of 
manitou  or  to  the  Melanesian  concept,  mana.  It  seems  pos- 
sible, also,  that  this  is  a  more  primitive  way  of  conceiving  the 
forces  of  the  natural  world  than  that  in  terms  of  spirits.  This 
conception  is,  however,  not  that  of  supernatural  powers,  but 
rather  that  of  a  certain  mysterious  element  of  the  undifferen- 
tiated environment  which  must  be  reckoned  with. 

The  problem,  then,  which  confronts  us,  is  that  of  determin- 
ing the  circumstances  under  which  those  types  6i  action  which 
are  distinctively  magical  and  distinctively  religious  stood  out 
definitely  in  primitive  man's  reaction  to  his  world.  The 
supposition  is  not  that  man  was  at  one  time  irreligious,  but 
rather  that  his  experience  was  too  simple  to  make  a  religious 
reaction  possible.  The  same  must  be  said  of  magic.  In  and 
so  far  as  they  have  elements  which  are  similar  functionally, 
religion  and  magic  originally  formed  a  part  of  a  primitive, 
undifferentiated  attitude,  and  separated  from  each  other  as 
experience  became  more  complex  and  the  requirements  of 
action  more  varied.  The  primitive  attitude  involved  the 
simplest  conscious  adjustments  of  the  human  species  to  the 
most  immediate  and  pressing  problems  of  the  life-process. 
It  involved  habits  and  customs  with  reference  to  these  needs 
and  the  beginnings  of  efforts  to  mediate  ends  of  which  the 
first  crude  impulses  had  fallen  short.  The  accumulation  of 
habits  about  various  centres  of  spontaneous  interest,  such 
as  gathering  fruits,  capturing  game,  the  act  of  procreation, 
birth,  the  coming  to  maturity,  death,  and  the  like,  laid  a 
foundation  for  a  more  intense  valuation  of  those  centres  of 
interest.* 

*  It  is  here  fully  realized  that  the  religions  and  practices  of  the  natural  races 
of  to-day  cannot  be  taken  as  truly  primitive.     Every  current  system  of  thought 


MAGIC  AND   RELIGION  177 

Obscure  as  are  the  beginnings  of  culture,  it  is  possible,  as 
has  already  been  suggested,  that  man's  first  philosophy,  in  so 
far  as  a  purely  naive  conception  of  things  can  be  called  a 
philosophy,  was  not  an  animistic  one,  that  is,  it  was  not  a  con- 
ception of  the  world  as  pervaded  by,  or  moved  by,  a  greater 
or  less  number  of  conscious  spiritual  agencies.^    It  was  more 

and  practice  has  doubtless  been  preceded  by  a  long  line  of  changes,  of  which, 
in  the  main,  we  know  nothing.  Almost  indefinite  possibilities  exist  as  far  as 
specific  details  of  the  past  of  any  savage  race  are  concerned.  As  Andrew  Lang 
says,  if  we  find  a  people  with  magic  and  no  religion,  how  do  we  know  but  that 
they  once  had  gods  and  despaired  of  them.  And  this  is  very  true  except  that  a 
people  probably  does  not  lose  its  gods  because  it  despairs  of  them,  but  because 
it  forgets  them,  having  its  attention  turned  to  new  situations  which  no  longer 
suggest  the  old  deities.  While  we  cannot  reconstruct  the  prehistoric  develop- 
ment of  any  present  race,  we  can  detect  certain  methods  of  development  in  the 
present  which  suggest  at  least  some  of  the  characteristics  of  truly  primitive  life. 
We  can  certainly  say  that  psychical  processes  followed  much  the  same  lines  of 
development,  and  that  the  objects  of  interest  were  not  intrinsically  different 
from  those  of  to-day.  If  this  be  granted,  we  may  suppose  that  the  results 
of  these  processes,  in  connection  with  the  objects  of  interest  which  they  must 
have  had,  were  fairly  similar  to  the  results  of  to-day.  In  other  words,  the 
application  of  psychology  to  social  phenomena  reveals  a  certain  method  in 
social  changes  which  it  is  legitimate  to  use  within  limits.  When,  therefore, 
such  a  writer  as  Professor  Ladd  asserts  that  primitive  man  is  a  fiction,  he  is 
partly  right  but  also  quite  wrong.  While  we  can  form  no  accurate  picture  of 
truly  primitive  conditions,  we  know  enough  about  the  natural  races  of  the 
present  to  determine  the  natural  history  of  many  of  their  ideas,  beliefs,  and 
practices.  The  observed  facts  of  the  anthropologist  point  to  fairly  definite 
conclusions.  It  is  certainly  better  to  start  with  these  facts  than  to  start  with 
some  a  priori  philosophical  conception  such  as  that  all  men  have  and  always 
have  had  a  religious  instinct  or  impulse.  When  Professor  Ladd  says  that  man 
has  always  been  religious,  he  certainly  postulates  something  of  primitive  man. 
In  other  words,  primitive  man  is  a  fiction  for  Professor  Ladd  when  he  deals  with 
theories  opposed  to  his  own,  but  as  far  as  his  own  theory  is  concerned,  primitive 
man  is  far  from  a  fiction.  {Vide  Philosophy  of  Religion^  G.  T.  Ladd.)  It 
means  nothing  to  say  all  men  have  religion,  unless  we  are  able  to  say  what  kind 
of  a  religion  it  is.  There  is  no  such  thing  as  religion  in  general.  The  same 
criticism  would  apply  to  Sabatier's  statement  that  'man  is  incurably  religious.' 
^  Cf.  with  the  ordinary  theory  as  expressed  by  Jevons,  Introduction  to  the 
Study  of  Comparative  Religion,  p.  89,  "Animism  is  a  stage  of  belief  lower  than 
which  or  back  of  which  science  does  not  profess  to  go." 
N 


178  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

probably  an  attitude  related  to  the  widely  current  savage 
belief  of  to-day  that  there  is  in  nature  an  impersonal,  semi- 
mechanical  force  which  man  can  to  some  extent  use  to  his 
advantage.  Of  course  this  attitude  toward  the  world, 
wherever  it  appears,  is  interwoven  with  human  action  and 
determines  it  to  a  certain  extent.  It  does  not,  however, 
follow  that  it  has  been  related  in  any  peculiar  way  to  the 
development  of  either  religion  or  magic.  Although  this  may 
have  been  a  truly  primitive  way  of  looking  at  things,  it  is  not 
now,  and  hence  probably  never  was,  a  critical  or  reflective  the- 
ory. The  primitive  man  of  to-day  has  no  philosophy  regarding 
this  'force.'  He  experiences  the  greatest  difficulty  in  telling 
what  he  really  thinks  at  all.  {An  attitude  toward  the  world 'i 
is  not  of  necessity  an  outcome  of  reflection.'  It  may  be  the 
almost  mechanical  outcome  of  one's  contact  with  his  immedi- 
ate environment.  Possibly  all  our  attitudes  begin  in  this  way, 
and  vary  only  in  the  degree  in  which  they  become  subjects  of 
reflection  and  of  criticism.  The  savage  is  thus  possessed  with 
what  we  may  call  an  instinctively  formulated  environment, 
to  which  he  reacts  as  a  matter  of  course,  and  only  with  great 
effort,  if  at  all,  can  he  abstract  a  particular  phase  of  that 
environment  and  think  of  it  by  itself.  Almost  all  observers 
emphasize  this  inability  of  the  natural  races.  Methods  of 
action  and  views  of  things  are  almost  invariably  taken  as 
matters  of  course.  Seldom  can  they  stand  off  from  any 
phase  of  their  life  and  survey  it  critically  in  view  of  its  avowed 
function.  It  seems,  therefore,  hardly  likely  that  any  type  of 
action,  such  as  magic,  could  have  grown  up  as  the  definite 
expression  of  any  isolable  feature  of  their  life.  The  simple, 
unreflective  world-view,  together  with  the  half-instinctively 
recognized  necessities  of  the  life-process,  result  in  multitudes 
of  activities  which  are  as  undifferentiated  as  is  the  type  of 
consciousness  expressed  in  them.     Certain  of  these  acts  occur 


MAGIC  AND   RELIGION  179 

in  certain  types  of  contexts,  and  in  this  way  alone  become 
the  basis  for  peculiar  types  of  mental  attitudes.  In  this  way 
they  gradually  differentiate,  and,  along  with  this  breaking 
up  into  different  kinds  of  acts,  there  appear  different  mental 
attitudes.  Thus,  we  hold  that  both  magical  and  religious 
practices  are  diverse  growths,  not  from  any  particular  theory 
or  hypothesis  regarding  the  world,  but  rather  from  the 
primitive  complex  of  naive  reactions.  As  man's  life  increased 
in  complexity,  through  the  necessity  of  doing  more  and  more 
things  and  meeting  a  greater  variety  of  conditions,  diverse 
mental  attitudes  would,  as  a  matter  of  course,  evolve,  and  the 
acts  associated  with  the  evolution  of  these  attitudes  would 
come  to  be  their  expression. 

An  examination  of  the  acts  usually  classed  respectively  as 
magical  or  religious  among  the  present  natural  races  seems 
to  bear  out  the  above  point  of  view.  In  innumerable  cases 
they  can  be  shown  to  be  primarily  the  natural  reaction  of  the 
psychophysical  organism,  almost  its  mechanical  reflex,  in 
situations  of  strain  or  relaxation,  or  to  such  conditions  as 
require  practical  adjustments  of  some  sort.  In  other  words, 
they  are  the  natural  overflow  of  the  organism  toward  its 
naively  conceived  world.  Thus,  Frazer  speaks  of  the  per- 
formance of  various  mimetic  ceremonies  by  the  women  at  home 
while  the  men  are  away  on  the  war-path.  In  the  Hindu  Kush, 
when  the  men  are  out  raiding  the  women  abandon  their 
work  in  the  fields  and  assemble  in  the  villages  to  dance  day 
and  night.  It  is  easy  to  see  that  the  women  would  naturally 
be  anxious  and  excited  under  such  circumstances,  and  their 
emotional  tension  would  easily  find  outlet  in  dancing,  together 
with  various  acts  imitative  of  things  their  lords  were  possibly 
doing.  In  fact,  the  imitative  acts,  far  from  being  designed  to 
assist  the  warriors  in  some  magical  way,  have  every  suggestion 
of  being  ideomotor  in  origin,  that  is,  not  consciously  designed 


7 


i8o  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

to  accomplish  any  end,  such  as  assisting  the  men,  but  the 
spontaneous  outflow  of  action  along  the  line  of  that  which 
absorbed  their  attention.  Just  as  when  we  see  a  struggle,  or 
even  think  of  one  very  intently,  we  often  find  ourselves  making 
movements  as  if  we  were  actually  in  the  fray  itself,  so  the 
women  of  a  tribe,  with  their  minds  full  of  the  fighting  that 
might  be  in  progress,  would  find  themselves  actually  acting  it 
out  in  a  fragmentary  way  at  home,  or,  if  their  excitement  did 
not  take  such  a  definite  form,  it  is  at  least  easy  to  see  how  they 
might  be  too  wrought  up  to  continue  their  accustomed  work, 
and  how,  as  they  met  together,  excited  activity  of  some  sort, 
whether  mimetic  or  not,  would  inevitably  result. 

So  much  for  the  origin  of  such  acts.  It  is  easy  to  see  how 
they  might  later  acquire  a  teleological  significance.  In  the 
course  of  time  some  one  might  reflect  upon  them  and  come  to 
believe  that  they  were  essential  to  the  success  of  the  war 
party.  For  instance,  upon  one  occasion,  the  women  might 
not  have  felt  their  accustomed  anxiety  and  have  continued 
their  ordinary  work.  If  the  men  came  back  worsted,  they 
might  think  of  their  own  conduct  and  attribute  the  defeat  to 
it.  Or  suppose  they  should  sometimes  dance,  not  because 
of  their  anxiety,  but  from  force  of  habit.  Possibly  it  would 
never  occur  to  them  to  explain  the  reason  for  so  doing ;  but  if 
at  a  later  time  they  should  be  asked  why,  the  whole  series 
of  acts,  the  fighting  of  the  men  and  their  own  mimes  and  their 
dancing,  would  be  so  bound  together  in  custom  that  they 
could  only  think  of  them  as  connected  in  a  very  real  way, 
the  performance  of  one  even  conditioning  the  success  of  the 
other. 

Frazer  also  mentions  the  practice  of  the  Carib  Indians 
severely  beating  two  lads  at  the  time  their  warriors  were 
engaged  in  battle.  Here,  again,  the  cause  need  be  nothing 
more  than  mere  ideomotor  suggestion.     The  stay-at-homes 


MAGIC  AND   RELIGION  l8i 

might  conceivably  fight  with  each  other  from  pure  excitement, 
and  this  somewhat  painful  exercise  would  be  reduced  in  time 
to  merely  beating  lads  who  could  not  easily  strike  back. 

In  most  instances  of  acts  of  a  magical  character,  it  seems 
quite  possible,  then,  that  they  can  be  most  easily  explained  as 
having  been  originally  the  direct  outcome  of  certain  simple 
psychical  conditions.  The  theory  of  magic  would  gradually 
evolve  from  these  preexisting  practices,  and,  under  certain 
conditions,  the  religious  attitude  would  also  arise  from  them. 
They  are,  in  other  words,  a  stratum  of  unrefiective  reactions 
whose  origin  may  be  perfectly  accounted  for  in  terms  of  the 
recognized  forms  of  psychophysical  activity,  out  of  which  the 
more  specialized  reactions  of  magic  and  religion  may  grow. 
The  typical  act  of  sympathetic  magic,  that  in  which  a  man 
makes  an  image  of  his  enemy  and^roasts  it  or  pricks  it,  that 
pain  or  death  may  come  to  the  enemy,  was  more  than  likely 
in  the  first  instance  a  spontaneous  psychophysical  reaction. 
A  man,  temporarily  or  absolutely  prevented  from  attacking  an 
enemy,  might  find  relief  from  his  wrought-up  state  of  mind  in 
an  imitative  attack  upon  him,  or,  in  the  first  instance,  with  his 
mind  full  of  the  attack,  he  might  have  struck  or  hacked  at  a 
stake  or  tree.  Under  the  same  conditions  he  might  even 
make  an  image  of  the  enemy.  Every  detail  of  the  act  of  sym- 
pathetic magic  may  thus  be  seen  to  have  been  possible  prior 
to  any  theory  of  magical  influences.  The  theory  itself,  as 
has  been  pointed  out,  is  not  intellectually  framed,  but  is  rather 
merely  the  vague  consciousness  of  a  movement  which  is  de- 
termined by  association  of  ideas  and  has  as  its  sustaining 
force  the  inertia  of  habit. 

We  hold,  therefore,  that  the  mass  of  customs,  of  no  osten- 
sible religious  or  magical  motive,  possessed  by  all  peoples 
are  of  peculiar  significance  because,  by  revealing  so^  clearly 
their  psychological  origin,  they  furnish  an  important  clew 


\ 


182  DEVELOPMENT  OF  RELIGION 

to  the  fundamental  nature  of  what  are  now  religious  acts 
and  magical  acts.  They  are,  in  fact,  the  remnants  of  a 
great  substratum  of  habit  which,  largely  by  accident  of  cir- 
cumstance, never  became  incorporated  into  the  movements  of 
experience  which  eventually  crystallized  in  magic  and  religion. 
They  may  be  regarded  indifferently  as  religion  or  as  magic 
in  the  most  primitive  form  of  these  beliefs.  Such  a  theory 
regarding  these  customs  does  not  carry  with  it  the  assumption 
that  they  are  literal  remnants  of  truly  primitive  life;  for  of 
such  life  we  can  know  nothing.  The  point  is  simply  that,  what- 
ever their  history  has  been,  they  represent  now  the  simplest 
results  of  the  reaction  of  the  psychical  organism  to  its  environ- 
ment, results  unreconstructed  by  reflection  and  ungarnered  by 
religion  or  magic.  We  believe  that  it  is  possible  at  any  stage 
of  culture  for  relatively  primitive  types  of  action  to  occur. 
Granted  a  psychophysical  organism  with  fairly  constant  basic 
needs  but  without  much  development  of  reflection,  and  in  an 
unmodified  natural  environment  the  forms  of  action  which 
appear  will  not  vary  widely  in  different  stages  of  culture.  The 
more  or  less  automatic  results  of  the  psychophysical  mechan- 
ism should  be  the  starting-points  of  all  attempts  to  explain 
human  customs,  institutions,  and  beliefs.  These  results  are 
present  and  practically  constant  in  all  ages  and  stages  of 
culture. 

The  following  are  illustrations  of  these  simple  customs 
which,  as  we  have  suggested,  are  possibly  not  to  be  classified  as 
either  magical  or  religious.  They  may  fairly  be  called  magic 
and  religion  in  their  most  primitive  form.  Among  the  Central 
Eskimo,  "There  are  numerous  regulations  governing  hunting, 
determining  to  whom  the  game  belongs,  and  the  obligations  of 
the  successful  hunter  towards  the  inhabitants  of  the  village. "  * 

1  Franz  Boas,  "The  Central  Eskimo,"  The  Sixth  Annual  Report  of  the 
Bureau  of  Ethnology,  pp.  581  f. 


MAGIC  AND   RELIGION  183 

There  are  very  strict  rules  prohibiting  in  any  way  the  contact  of 
land  and  sea  game.  Thus,  deer  meat  must  not  be  eaten  the 
same  day  with  seal.  When  skinning  deer,  the  hunter  must 
avoid  breaking  a  single  bone.  Bits  of  different  parts  of  the 
animal  must  be  cut  off  and  buried  in  the  ground  or  under 
stones.  On  the  west  shore  of  Hudson  Bay,  dogs  are  not 
allowed  to  gnaw  deer  bones  during  the  deer-hunting  season, 
nor  seal  bones  in  the  season  of  seals.  Potstone  must  always  be 
bought  from  the  rock  where  it  is  obtained.  In  one  section 
the  natives  address  a  large  rock  and  bid  it  farewell  in  passing. 
At  a  certain  dangerous  cape  they  always  shake  the  head  and 
mutter  in  passing.^  (It  may  well  be  that  all  of  these  customs 
are  involved  with  the  belief  in  a  mysterious  mechanical  agency 
analogous  to  the  Siouan  wakonda;  even  so,  they  would  remain 
legitimate  illustrations  of  the  point  we  here  make.) 

The  following  customs  apparently  belong  to  the  same  cate- 
gory as  those  of  the  Eskimo  mentioned  above.  In  Central 
Australia,  when  men  start  out  upon  an  avenging  expedition, 
each  member  of  the  party  drinks  some  blood  and  also  has 
some  spurted  over  his  body  that  he  may  be  lithe  and  active.^ 
Among  these  same  tribes,  a  mother,  a  few  days  after  child- 
birth, cuts  off  the  part  of  the  umbilical  cord  still  remaining 
attached  to  the  child,  swathes  it  in  fur  strings,  makes  it  into 
a  necklace,  and  places  it  about  the  child's  neck.  It  is  supposed 
to  facilitate  the  growth  of  the  child,  to  keep  it  quiet  and  con- 
tented, to  avert  illness  generally,  and  has  the  faculty  of  dead- 
ening to  the  child  the  noise  of  the  barking  of  the  camp  dogs.^ 

Among  the  Thompson  Indians  of  British  Columbia,  if  a 
person  bathes  in  the  river,  he  must  do  so  below,  and  not  above, 
fishing  platforms,  as  the  salmon  are  affected  a  mile  or  two 

^  "  The  Central  Eskimo,"  Franz  Boas,  The  Sixth  Annual  Report  of  the 
Bureau  of  Ethnology,  pp.  581  f . 

'  Spencer  and  Gillen,  Native  Tribes,  etc.,  p.  461.  •  Ihid. 


i84  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

below  the  place  where  a  person  bathes.  Children  are  for- 
bidden to  mention  the  name  of  the  coyote  in  winter-time  for 
fear  that  the  animal  may  turn  on  his  back  and  immediately 
bring  cold  weather  by  so  doing.  Again,  if  a  person  burns 
the  wood  of  trees  that  have  been  struck  by  lightning,  the 
weather  will  immediately  turn  cold.  The  death  or  burial 
of  a  person  causes  an  immediate  change  in  the  weather.  A 
certain  root  was  chewed  and  then  spit  out  against  the  wind  to 
cause  a  calm.  To  burn  the  feathers  of  the  ptarmigan  or  the 
hair  of  the  mountain  goat  will  cause  sudden  cold  weather  or  a 
snow-storm.*  A  woman  should  not  eat  in  the  morning  if  go- 
ing out  to  dig  roots  or  to  rob  the  nests  or  the  stores  of  squirrels. 
If  she  fails  to  observe  this  rule,  either  she  will  not  find  the  nests 
or  they  will  be  empty.^  In  some  of  the  Melanesian  Islands 
it  is  common  for  a  native  who  wishes  to  descend  a  steep  hill 
or  cliff  to  pile  up  some  sticks  at  the  top  to  insure  a  safe  descent. 
There  is  no  thought  of  a  sacrifice  in  this  act,  nor  does  any 
prayer  accompany  it.^  Many  volumes  of  such  regulations 
might  be  collected  from  the  accounts  we  possess  of  the  natural 
races,  detached  customs  which  are  little  more  than  habits, 
possibly  to  a  certain  extent  growing  out  of  the  belief  in  a  mys- 
terious potency,  but  sharing  few  of  the  distinguishing  char- 

*  James  Teit,  "The  Thompson  Indians,"  Memoirs  of  the  American  Mu- 
seum of  Natural  History^  Vol.  II,  p.  374. 

» Ihid.,  pp.  348-349- 

•  Codrington,  Melanesians. 

Note.  —  Professor  F.  B.  Jevons,  in  his  Introduction  to  the  Study  of  Compara- 
tive Religion,  1908,  pp.  72  fif.,  also  distinguishes  magical  from  premagical  rites 
or  practices.  His  discussion  had  not  appeared  when  the  foregoing  paragraphs 
were  written,  but  it  is,  nevertheless,  gratifying  to  discover  this  testimony  to  a 
similar  point  of  view.  His  distinction  is  much  the  same  as  that  made  here, 
and  which  is  further  worked  out  in  later  sections  of  this  chapter,  viz.,  that,  while 
premagical  practices  are  generally  known  and  open  to  all  aUke,  those  of  magic 
are  not  so  well  known  and  are  practised  in  secret  by  the  few,  and  are  therefore 
feared  by  the  masses. 


MAGIC   AND   RELIGION  185 

acteristics  of  magic  or  religion.  They  belong  to  what  we  call 
the  '  do-or-avoid-this-or-that-performance-lest-something-hap- 
pen'  type  of  action.  The  practices  of  magic  are  more  definite. 
They  are  explicit  attempts  to  reduce  recalcitrant  forces  to 
the  whim  of  the  practitioner. 

Many  of  those  who  have  written  upon  the  subject  of  magic 
lay  great  stress  upon  an  axiom,  supposedly  held  by  primi- 
tive man,  that  *  like  produces  like.'  Possibly  such  a  concep- 
tion of  natural  causation  may,  in  time,  have  been  constructed, 
but,  if  such  were  the  case,  we  believe  that  it  was  the  result 
of  magical  practices  rather  than  their  presupposition.  Many 
of  the  instances  that  seem  to  be  based  upon  a  theory  of  like 
producing  like  can  be  explained  as  purely  spontaneous  re- 
actions, frequently  the  outcome  of  situations  of  emotional 
tension,  or  acts  which  have  clung  together  through  the  pecul- 
iar way  in  which  they  were  first  associated.  In  most  of  these 
cases  we  believe  it  is  an  afterthought  that  the  acts  have  an 
efficacy  of  any  sort.^  As  far  as  primitive  man  states  to  him- 
self the  cause  of  the  efficacy  of  a  magical  rite,  it  is  largely 
that  such  a  rite  sets  free,  or  renders  active  not  spirits,  but  that 
mystic  potency  with  which  he  believes  nature  is  surcharged.^ 
This  notion  is  much  simpler  than  the  so-called  axiom  that  'like 
produces  like,'  and  it  has  contributed  largely  to  the  develop- 
ment of  such  customs  as  we  have  mentioned  above.  When  a 
man  whistles  to  produce  a  wind,  or  eats  the  flesh  of  a  tiger  that 
he  may  become  bold,  he  is  simply  trying  to  avail  himself  of 
some  of  this  pervasive  mystic  potency.  When  he  whistles,  he 
imagines  he  is  exerting  his  own  potency  to  accomplish  what 
he  thinks  the  trees  do  when  they  whistle  and  groan  and  sigh 
and  the  wind  blows,  or  what  the  Sioux  thinks  he  sees  the  buffalo 
bull  doing,  when,  before  a  fight,  he  paws  the  dust,  thus  pro- 

^  Supra,  p.  179. 

*  Supra,  p.  177,  also  Chapter  VI,  "The  Mysterious  Power." 


i86  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

ducing  a  small  whirlwind.  The  Indian  does  not  believe 
that  confusion  will  come  to  the  buffalo's  foe  through  any 
principle  of  like  producing  like,  but  because  the  buffalo  in  this 
way  sets  free  his  wakonda,  and  this  causes  the  confusion. 
While  Jevons,  in  his  Study  of  Comparative  Religion  (chapter  on 
"  Magic  "),  assumes  that  magic  is  based  upon  the  axiom  which 
we  have  just  criticised,  he  qualifies  his  view  in  an  appended 
note,  admitting  that  it  is  through  the  exercise  of  *power,'  es- 
pecially by  a  magician,  that  such  effects  as  that  of  killing  a 
man  by  stabbing  his  effigy  are  supposed  to  occur,  rather  than 
by  the  element  of  likeness  between  stabbing  a  real  man  and 
doing  the  same  to  his  effigy. 

Superstitious  beliefs  such  as  the  above  are,  of  course, 
analogous  to  the  many  detached  superstitions  persisting  to- 
day in  the  lower  strata  of  civilized  society.  Many  of  these, 
to  be  sure,  may  be  remnants  of  genuine  magical  and  religious 
beliefs,  but  many  others  are  in  all  probability  vestiges  of  prim- 
itive man's  crude  associations  or  of  his  spontaneous  and  un- 
refiective  reactions.  Much  of  the  material  collected  by  Dr. 
Frazer  from  the  peasant  beliefs  and  customs  of  present-day 
Europe,  and  which  he  interprets  as  magic,  belongs,  we  believe, 
to  this  primordial  substratum. 

We  have  been  advancing  the  {jvpn^hesis  that  magic  and 
religi^g^are  differentiations  from  a  primitive  substratum  of 
crude  associations  and  spontaneous  regions.  We  have 
given  some  illustrations  which  seem  to  point  to  the  reality 
of  such  a  substrate.  If  we  turn  to  practices  which  are 
avowedly  magical,  we  find  it  possible,  in  a  very  large  number 
of  cases,  to  show  a  real  kinship  between  them  and  this  more 
primitive  type.  Distinctly  magical  practices  which  can  thus 
quite  clearly  be  traced  back  to  spontaneous  reactions  of  the 
psychophysical  organism  occur  among  the  Central  Austra- 
lians.    It  is,  of  course,  impossible  to  say  whether  these  partic- 


MAGIC   AND   RELIGION  187 

ular  customs  have  had  only  such  an  origin,  but  it  is  certainly 
a  safe  hypothesis  that  they  have  at  least  developed  through 
the  suggestion  or  the  imitation  of  practices  which  did  so 
originate.  Every  native  in  this  portion  of  Australia  believes 
he  can  injure  another  by  pointing  at  him  a  stick  or  bone,  which 
has  been  sung  over.  This  practice  is  clearly  an  outgrowth 
of  anticipatory  acts  or  of  acts  performed  because  the  real 
onslaught  is  either  impossible  or  impracticable  under  the  cir- 
cumstances. In  the  same  way  spears  may  be  sung  over  and 
are  thought  to  be  able  to  inflict  wounds  beyond  the  power  of 
the  medicine-man  to  cure.  The  hair  of  a  dead  man  is  con- 
sidered for  certain  of  his  tribe  to  be  a  very  efficient  magical  in- 
strument. A  girdle  made  of  such  material  is  supposed  to  add 
to  its  possessor  all  the  warlike  qualities  of  the  person  from 
whom  it  was  made.^  The  practice  here  described  is  quite 
clearly  to  be  explained  on  the  ground  of  the  law  of  association. 
It  would  be  natural  for  the  relatives  of  a  dead  man  to  desire 
to  keep  some  portion  of  him  which  would  be  relatively  per- 
manent, and  it  would  be  easy  for  them  to  associate  with  this 
hair  whatever  peculiar  capacities  he  was  known  to  possess, 
until,  finally,  those  capacities  would  be  thought  of  as  inhe- 
rent in  the  hair  itself  and  capable  of  transmission  through  it. 
For  the  same  reasons  the  dead  man's  fur-string  girdle  and 
head-bands  are  held  in  high  esteem. 

The  Australian  method  of  procuring  wives  by  magic  is  a 
further,  and  a  very  clear,  evidence  of  the  theory  here  pre- 
sented of  the  development  of  magical  rites.  As  described 
by  Spencer  and  Gillen,  they  seem  to  be  just  such  acts  as 
a  man  might  tend  to  perform  as  his  attention  was  engrossed 
with  the  thought  of  a  certain  woman  and  with  the  desire 
to  obtain  her  for  his  wife.  Thus,  he  may  wear  a  charmed 
head-band  before  the  woman,  which  is  a  generally  recog- 

^  Spencer  and  Gillen,  The  Native  Tribes  of  Central  Australia,  p.  539. 


i88  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

nized  sign  of  love,  and  of  course  the  woman  who  discov- 
ers it  is  directed  to  her  would  be  affected  by  it  in  much 
the  same  way  that  a  modern  white  woman  might  be  moved 
by  a  verbal  proposal.  It  is  simply  a  conventional  and  rec- 
ognized way  of  indicating  one's  desires,  and  the  savage 
who  explains  everything  in  terms  of  mysterious  influences 
can  see  no  other  means  of  interpreting  the  reactions  of 
the  psychophysical  organism  to  the  stimuli  which  affect  it. 
In  the  same  way  the  flageolet  is'  the  lover's  signal  among 
some  of  the  Plains  Indians  of  North  America,*  and  here,  also, 
the  natural  response  of  the  woman  was  explained  through 
the  influence  of  some  magic  power.  Another  perfectly  natu- 
ral, but  from  the  Australian  point  of  view  magical,  method 
of  securing  a  wife  is  to  attract  her  by  a  much-valued  shell 
ornament,  which  the  suitor  wears  at  a  corrobbree,  and  makes 
it  a  point  that  the  desired  one  sees  the  symbol  of  his  wish. 
Many  of  their  other  methods  fall  into  the  same  class  as  the 
above.  An  interesting  illustration  of  a  magical  act  which  is 
the  almost  mechanical  outcome  of  association  is  that  of  these 
same  people  who  seek  to  increase  the  growth  of  the  whiskers 
in  young  men  through  rubbing  their  chins  with  the  Churinga 
(the  sacred  object  or  emblem)  of  the  rat  totem  (their  rat 
being  distinguished  by  very  long  whiskers).  Here,  as  in  all 
cases,  the  simple  native  passes  spontaneously  and  unreflect- 
ively  over  from  one  object  to  an  associated  object,  and  as 
unreflectively  thinks  of  the  second  object  as  possessed  of  the 
powers  or  qualities  of  the  first.^ 

A  further  illustration  of  the  connection  of  a  supposedly 
magical  rite  with  acts  which  are  the  quite  spontaneous  expres- 
sion of  an  intensely  emotional  state  of  mind  is  the  following 

*  Wissler,  Clark.     "  The  whirlwind  and  the  elk  in  the  mythology  of  the 
Dakota,"  Journal  of  American  Folklore,  Vol.  XVIII,  p.  261. 
'  See  chapter  on  "The  Mysterious  Power,"  p.  148. 


MAGIC  AND   RELIGION  189 

method  of  punishing  a  man  who  has  stolen  a  wife,  but  who 
belongs  to  a  group  which  is  either  too  far  away  or  too  powerful 
to  make  an  open  fight  desirable  or  prudent.  The  husband, 
with  the  assistance  of  another  man,  prepares  a  small  stone 
knife-blade  of  quartzite  or  flint,  which,  with  various  accessories, 
is  sung  over  and  left  in  the  sun  in  a  secluded  spot  for  some 
days.  The  men  go  to  it  every  day  and  sing  over  it  the  request 
that  it  kill  the  man  who  stole  the  woman.  Finally,  it  is  thrown 
with  great  force  in  the  direction  of  the  enemy.  The  men  then 
wait  in  silence,  crouched  in  a  very  uncomfortable  position, 
sometimes  for  several  hours,  until  they  imagine  they  hear  the 
spirit  in  the  stone,  asking  from  a  great  distance  where  the 
man  is.  They  then  return  to  the  camp  and  listen  for  a 
great  noise  which  indicates  to  them  that  the  sharp  stone  has 
found  the  man  and  killed  him.^  This  procedure  is,  of  course, 
quite  highly  developed,  but  each  act  might  apparently  have 
been  originally  just  such  a  spontaneous  outburst  as  would  be 
made  by  a  distracted  person  who  could  find  no  direct  means 
of  inflicting  punishment  upon  his  adversary. 

Illustrations  of  this  sort  might  be  multiplied  almost  indefi- 
nitely.   Some  of  them  are  primarily  practical  adjustments,  but 
most  of  them  are  activities  of  an  accessory  character,  that  is,       \ 
acts  in  which  emotional  tensions  have  found  relief,  or  excess        | 
activities  at  the  time  of  relief  from  much  emotional  tension.        I 
The  greater  number  of  the  customs  collected  by  Frazer  in        } 
The  Golden  Bough,  as  illustrations  of  the  prevalence  of  magic 
in  primitive  culture,  fall,  as  suggested  above,^  into  this  class, 
and  are  not  strictly  magical  activities  at  all. 

If  these  practices  had  chancedto  be  more  closely  associated      H 
with  the  evolution  of  tribal  consciousness  and  tribal  interests, 
they  might  have  furnished  the  nuclei  of  rituals  and  definite 

*  Spencer  and  Gillen,  op.  cit.,  pp.  548  £f. 
2  Supra,  p.  186. 


I90  DEVELOPMENT   OF   RELIGION 

religious  ideas.  If  they  had  been  more  closely  connected  with 
lines  of  individual  interest,  so  as  to  have  furnished  a  technique 
available  to  the  individual  for  carrying  out  his  personal  de- 
sires, they  would  have  formed  the  basis  of  magic.  Thus  the 
custom  referred  to  of  piling  some  sticks  at  the  top  of  a 
steep  hill  to  insure  a  safe  descent  has  the  appearance  of  an 
embryonic  religious  sacrifice.  But  the  occasion  for  it  is  not 
insistent  enough,  nor  does  it  require  any  concerted  attention 
on  the  part  of  a  social  group,  so  that  religious  values  can 
scarcely  develop  through  it.  On  the  other  hand,  such  a 
custom  does  not  have  sufficiently  close  connection  with  daily 
individual  interests  to  make  it  possible  for  any  general  tech- 
nique for  dealing  with  these  interests  to  develop  from  it. 

Magic  has  been  called  primitive  man's  science  because  it 
offers  a  more  or  less  definite  method  of  manipulating  nature 
for  practical  purposes.  While  this  is  a  good  working  concep- 
tion, it  is  worth  while  to  remember  that  its  roots  go  down  into 
the  natural  reactions  made  by  the  psychophysical  organ- 
ism in  certain  kinds  of  situations,  rather  than  to  any 
speculative  hypothesis  regarding  nature.  Both  magic  and 
religion  are  based  upon  processes  already  going  on  in  the  social 
body,  some  practical,  others  accessory,  and  all  more  or  less 
non-reflective  and  spontaneous.  Some  of  these  processes, 
as  we  have  said,  are  quite  definitely  related  to  social  ends  and 
aims ;  others  have  less  definite  connections  of  this  sort,  that  is, 
they  seldom  hold  the  attention  of  the  group  for  long  periods, 
nor  do  they  enter,  in  any  marked  way,  into  the  activities  in 
which  the  group  engages;  possibly  they  relate  to  ends  or 
impulses  which  are  distinctly  anti-social,  such  as  the  injury  of 
a  fellow-tribesman  because  of  personal  jealousy.  In  these 
cases  the  act  either  does  not  interest  the  group  as  a  whole  in 
such  a  manner  that  the  latter  sees  in  it  the  expression  of  a 
conmiunal  desire^  or  it  arouses  its  antipathy  because  of  its 


MAGIC   AND   RELIGION  191 

being  secret  and  hence  inimical  to  the  well-being  of  the  com- 
munity. 

As  far  as  the  form  of  the  action  and  its  origin  are  concerned, 
there  is,  then,  originally,  a  practical  identity  between  magic 
and  religion.  They  involve,  however,  different  motives,  and 
therefore  develop  along  different  lines.  Since  each  is  a  devel- 
opment from  a  common  stock  of  ideas  and  forms  of  action, 
the  ultimate  diversity  illustrates  most  vividly  how  difference 
in  motive  and  social  context  can  modify  or  even  determine 
an  evolutionary  series.  In  the  following  pages  we  hope 
to  make  clear  how  the  peculiar  characteristics  of  magic  may 
be  thus  explained. 

In  the  first  place,  let  us  note  the  status  of  magic  in  the 
primitive  societies  known  to  us.  In  practically  every  direc- 
tion we  find  that  the  sorcerer  is  one  who  deals  privately  with 
secret  powers,  or  at  least  with  means  not  generally  known  to 
the  group,  and  the  object  is  almost  always  private  gain  or 
personal  vengeance.  The  peculiarity  of  the  sorcerer,  Lyall 
says,  is  that  he  does  everything  without  help  of  the  gods. 
It  begins  "when  a  savage  stumbles  on  a  few  natural  effects 
out  of  the  common  run  of  things,  which  he  finds  himself 
able  to  work  by  unvarying  rule  of  thumb."  ^  This  writer 
further  says,  in  substance,  that  religion  is  divided  from  magic 
by  its  characteristics  of  inspiration,  adorations,  vows,  and 
oracles,  while  magic  is  a  system  of  thaumaturgy  by  occult, 
incomprehensible  arts.^  The  priest  serves  a  god,  while  the 
sorcerer  makes  a  demon  serve  him.  The  contrast  here 
drawn  is  not  comprehensive,  nor  is  it  accurate  in  detail,  but 
it  suggests  the  line  of  cleavage  which  we  have  attempted  to 
make. 

*  Sir  Charles  Lyall,  Asiatic  Studies,  p.  79,  ist  series. 

'  Cf.  Jevons,  Introduction  to  the  Study  of  Comparative  Religion,  p.  95, 
for  the  same  view. 


192  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

The  fact  that  magic  is  individualistic  and  more  or  less 
private  is  strikingly  illustrated  by  Rivers*  experience  in 
his  study  of  the  Todas.  He  found  the  greatest  difficulty 
in  learning  anything  definite  regarding  their  magic.  Those 
who  knew  were  evidently  afraid  to  reveal  the  fact,  and  many 
were  entirely  ignorant  of  the  nature  of  the  sorcerers'  machina- 
tions, and  expressed  themselves  as  very  desirous  that  their 
secret  workings  be  uncovered.  The  actual  powers  reputed 
to  belong  to  the  Toda  sorcerer  bear  out  fully  the  theory  of 
magic  here  proposed.  He  is  supposed  to  be  able  to  inflict 
various  injuries  upon  a  man  who  has  in  any  way  offended 
him.  His  methods  are  distinctly  private  and  his  end  per- 
sonal. Another  striking  fact  is  the  differentiation  between 
the  priest,  or  dairyman,  and  the  diviner,  medicine-man, 
and  sorcerer.  The  dairyman  is,  in  a  way,  the  function- 
ary of  the  social  group,  while  the  sorcerer  is  merely  an  indi- 
vidual who  has  in  some  way  acquired  special  powers  which 
he  uses  for  his  own  ends.  He  is  believed  to  be  able  to  cause 
sickness  oi\death  in  the  family  or  among  the  buffaloes ;  he  can 
cause  the  buffaloes'  milk  to  fail,  or  he  can  make  them  kick 
their  calves.  He  may  also  keep  the  milk  from  coagulat- 
ing, may  cause  the  dairies  to  burn  down,  or  the  bells  to  be 
lost,  and  all  to  satisfy  private  grudges.* 

Among  the  tribes  of  the  Niger  Delta,  it  is  believed  that 
"Any  person  who  owes  another  a  grudge  can,  and  does, 
inflict  mortal  injury  on  that  person,"  by  magical  means.^ 
These  negroes  believe  that  there  is  a  witch  society  in  every 
community,  the  doings  of  which  are  shrouded  in  great  mystery. 
There  are  very  likely  crafty  and  scheming  persons,  who  play 
upon  the  people  to  such  an  extent  that  they,  in  their  heated 
imagination,  picture  them  as  far  more  numerous  than  they 

>  The  Todas,  Chap.  XII. 

*  A.  G.  Leonard,  The  Lower  Niger  and  Us  Tribes,  London,  1906,  p.  480. 


MAGIC  AND   RELIGION  193 

really  are.  Leonard,  from  an  intimate  acquaintance  with 
these  tribes,  says,  referring  to  their  belief  in  magic:  "It  is 
possible  to  recognize  at  the  very  outset  two  landmarks :  the 
first  being  the  entire  absence  of  the  ancestral  element  [which 
is  present  more  or  less  in  their  religion] ;  and  the  second,  the 
fact  that  the  powers  utilized  by  the  exponents  of  magic  are 
natural,  and  of  the  element  of  evil,  pure  and  simple,*'  as  over 
against  those  things  which  make  for  social  harmony  and  for 
social  good.* 

Kidd,  in  writing  of  the  Kafirs,  says  that  witchcraft  is  re- 
garded by  them  as  being  private,  illicit,  and  anti-social  in  its 
use  of  the  forces  of  nature.  They  have  also  a  technique  of 
public  magic,  which  is  used  for  the  benefit  of  the  whole 
tribe.^  When  the  rites  of  magic  are  thus  appropriated  by  the 
tribe  for  public  use,  they  are  inevitably  more  or  less  socialized, 
and,  it  is  likely,  begin  to  partake  of  the  nature  of  religion. 
If  ever  there  is  a  meeting-place  between  magic  and  religion, 
it  must  be  among  those  groups  which  have  thus  developed 
a  social  type  of  magic  from  that  which  must,  originally,  have 
been  individualistic.  The  following  are  a  few  further  illus- 
trations of  many  that  might  be  given :  — 

"The  Sia  have  something  as  appalling  to  them  as  the  return 
of  the  dead,  in  their  belief  in  witchcraft,  those  possessing  this 
craft  being  able  to  assume  the  form  of  dogs  and  other  beasts." 

"They  create  disease  by  casting  into  the  body  snakes, 
worms,  stones,  bits  of  fabric."  The  theurgists  of  the  secret 
societies  are  able,  however,  to  cope  with  them.^  So  among 
the  Central  Eskimo,*  the  angakoq^  sl  conjurer  or  medicine- 
man, is  really  a  tribal  functionary  who  has  many  ceremonies 

*  Ibid.,  p.  479. 

^  Kafir  Socialism,  Dudley  Kidd,  1908,  p.  21. 

*  Annual  Report  of  the  Bureau  of  Ethnology,  1889-1890,  p.  68. 

*  Boas,  op.  cit.,  p.  592. 

o 


194  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

by  which  to  drive  off  spirits.  His  principal  office  is  to 
find  the  reason  for  sickness  and  death  or  any  misfortune 
visiting  the  natives.  Storms  and  bad  weather  are  conjured 
by  them  by  taking  a  whip  of  seaweed  and  waving  it  on  the 
beach  and  crying,  'It  is  enough.'  We  have  record  also  of 
an  apparently  magical  rite  performed  by  an  Eskimo  com- 
munity. A  village  united  to  kill  an  evil  spirit  that  had  been 
causing  bad  weather.^  There  are  several  classes  of  medicine- 
men among  the  Ojibwa,  one  of  which  is  organized  into  a 
secret  society,  and  deals  with  matters  of  public  concern  and 
is  distinctly  religious  in  character,  while  the  others  are  more 
or  less  private  in  their  activities,  and  are  responsible  for  the 
type  of  magic  which  is  so  much  dreaded  by  the  Indians. 
Among  the  tribes  of  Central  Australia  "every  man  may  have 
recourse  to  what  is  usually  spoken  of  as  sorcery,  by  means  of 
which  he  may  work  harm  of  some  kind  to  an  enemy,  and  this 
power  is  not  in  any  way  confined  to  the  medicine-men,  though 
on  the  other  hand  they  are  the  only  men  who  can  counteract 
the  evil  influence  of  an  enemy."  ^ 

It  is  an  interesting  question  as  to  why  the  treatment  of  dis- 
ease among  savage  peoples  has  been  so  fully  taken  up  by 
magic  rather  than  by  religion.  The  answer  seems  to  be  that 
although  sickness  and  death  are  matters  of  interest  to  the 
group,  they  are  more  or  less  uncertain  as  to  times  and  occa- 
sions; it  is  something  that  must  necessarily  interest  some 
few  more  than  the  whole  group.  To  be  sure,  after  a  death, 
it  may  become  a  matter  of  group  concern  to  guard  against 
the  departed  spirit,  but  before  death  the  sick  man  is  a  problem 
requiring  the  attention  and  skill  of  some  individual.  Or  per- 
haps the  treating  of  sickness  by  magic  originates  in  the  fact 
that  it  is  supposed  to  be  caused  by  magic,  and  hence  must  be 

'  Boas,  op,  cit.  '  Spencer  and  Gillen,  op.  cit.,  p.  530. 


MAGIC  AND   RELIGION     .  195 

counteracted  by  a  similar  force.  But  as  the  cause  of  sickness 
we  can  detect  the  individual  character  of  magic  as  opposed 
to  religion.  The  medicine-man  who  cures,  on  the  other 
hand,  represents  the  tribe  in  its  desire  to  keep  itself  intact 
against  the  wiles  of  malicious  individuals. 

There  is,  we  believe,  no  generalization  concerning  savage 
practices  which  may  be  made  with  greater  assurance  than 
this,  that  magic  is  relatively  individualistic  and  secret  in  its 
methods  and  interests,  and  is  thus  opposed  fundamentally 
to  the  methods  and  interests  of  religion,  which  are  social  and 
public.  This  individualistic  and  secret  character  of  magic 
makes  it  easy  for  it  to  become  the  instrument  of  secret  ven- 
geance, as  we  have  seen  above.  There  is  no  primitive  society, 
as  far  as  our  accounts  have  gone,  ^hich  does  not  dread  the 
sorcerer.  Everywhere  there  is  a  clear-cuL  JisLincLion  belVVt«n 
the  sorcerer,  who  deals  secretly  with  unfamiliar  agencies,  and 
the  priest  or  medicine-man,  who  works  for  the  public  good. 
In  some  cases  the  latter  uses  *good  magic,'  and  in  some 
the  recognized  technique  of  religion,  and  it  is  difficult  to  sepa- 
rate the  one  clearly  from  the  other,  as  far  as  the  attitude  of 
mind  involved  is  concerned.  Public  magic  is  to  all  intents 
and  purposes  organic  with  primitive  religion.  On  the  other 
hand,  when  religion  becomes  subservient  to  anti-social  or  to 
merely  private  ends,  it  is  scarcely  to  be  distinguished  from 
sorcery.  Among  the  Tshi-speaking  tribes  of  West  Africa  it 
is  possible  for  an  individual  to  seek  out  some  spirit  and  ally 
himself  with  it,  in  the  same  way  that  a  clan  or  village  may 
seek  among  the  undomesticated  spirits  for  a  tutelary  deity. 
Such  an  individual  spirit  has  one  most  important  function: 
to  work,  according  to  the  will  of  its  possessor,  evil  of  all  kinds 
against  the  latter's  enemies.  When  an  individual  resorts  to 
such  a  spirit,  the  request  which  he  has  to  prefer  is  such  as  he 
dare  not  make  publicly  to  the  clan  god,  the  guardian  of  the 


196  DEVELOPMENT   OF   RELIGION 

interests  of  the  community  and  of  tribal  morality.  Customs 
such  as  these  are  scarcely  to  be  distinguished  from  magic. 
They  have  to  do  with  the  occasional  interest,  the  private 
grudge ;  there  is  no  abiding  consciousness  of  value  built  up  by 
means  of  them,  as  in  the  case  of  religious  rites  where  all  join 
together  at  stated  intervals  to  celebrate  matters  of  general 
and  abiding  interest.  This  contrast  is  brought  out  in  the 
following  from  Nassau:  *  "In  the  great  emergencies  of  life, 
such  as  plagues,  famines,  deaths,  funerals,  and  where  witch- 
craft and  black  art  are  suspected,  the  aid  or  intervention  of 
special  fetiches  is  invoked.  .  .  .  But  for  the  needs  of  life 
day  by  day,  with  its  routine  of  occupations  whose  outgoings 
are  known  and  expected,  the  Bantu  fetich  worshipper  depends 
upon  himself  and  his  regular  fetich  charms,  which  indeed 
were  made  either  at  his  request  by  a  doctor,  or  by  himself 
on  fetich  rule  obtained  from  a  doctor.  .  .  .  The  worshipper 
keeps  these  amulets  and  mixed  medicines  hanging  on  the 
wall  of  his  room  or  hidden  in  one  of  his  boxes.  But  he  gives 
them  no  regular  reverence  or  worship,  no  sacrifice  or  prayer, 
until  such  times  as  their  services  are  needed.  .  .  .  These 
needs  come  day  by  day"  in  "hunting,  warring,  trading, 
lovemaking,  fishing,  planting,  or  journeying.'* 

The  reaction  of  the  group  against  sorcery,  or  magic,  seems 
to  be  primarily  the  assertion  of  the  consciousness  of  the 
group,  as  expressed  or  organized  in  recognized  customs, 
against  the  individual  who  departs  from  known  methods  of 
action  and  seeks  to  accomplish  ends  of  his  own  by  secret 
means.  It  is  the  reaction  of  the  familiar  and  public  against 
the  unknown  and  private.  In  this  opposition  between  magic 
and  religion,  we  have  the  beginnings  of  a  conflict  which  has 
continued  up  until  our  own  day,  that  is,  the  conflict  between 
science  and  religion.     Since  religion  is  in  large  measure  the 

*  Fetichism  in  West  Africa,  pp.  172,  173. 


/ 


MAGIC   AND   RELIGION  197 

appreciation  of  values,  a  thing  which  is  rendered  possible  only 
through  the  formation  of  habits  and  associations  about  the 
end  or  object  valued,  it  must  always  possess  more  or  less 
inertia,  more  or  less  of  a  tendency  to  resist  change  or  innova- 
/  tion.  Hence  it  instinctively  looks  with  suspicion  upon  all 
individual  initiative,  especially  as  this  finds  play  in  magic,  or 
later  in  genuine  science. 

The  connection  of  magic  with  the  mysterious  is  well  illus- 
trated by  the  tendency  of  all  primitive  peoples  to  attribute 
magical  powers  to  people  with  whom  they  have  little  inter- 
course. Thus,  the  members  of  the  lowest  stratum  of  society 
in  India,  i.e.  the  Dravidians,  are  regarded  as  magicians,  par 
excellence,  by  the  higher  classes.^  The  Todas  dread  the  sor- 
cery of  the  Korumbas,  a  lower  race,  far  more  than  that  of 
their  own  magicians.^  Among  the  Central  Australians,  dis- 
tant and  unfamiliar  tribes  are  supposed  to  be  experts  in 
magic.^ 

In  connection  with  the  fact  that  magic  has  to  do  with  the 
private  and  mysterious  as  over  against  the  social,  it  is  of 
some  importance  to  note  that  the  practiser  of  magic  is  usually 
recognized  as  a  peculiarly  gifted  individual,  having  through 
his  own  effort  or  initiative  these  special  powers.  The  mak- 
ing of  a  medicine-man  is,  moreover,  never  a  public  function. 
A  man  acquires  such  powers  only  through  his  own  sub- 
jective effort,  or  through  the  help  of  another  medicine-man. 
Thus,  among  the  Central  Australians  the  sorcerer  may  ac- 
quire his  powers  either  through  the  agency  of  some  supposed 
spirits,  or  through  the  help  of  others  of  the  same  craft.  In 
either  case  the  process  is  a  private  and  individual  affair. 

*  Crooke,  William,  Popular  Religion  and  Folklore  of  Northern  India. 
'  Rivers,  The  Todas,  p.  263. 

'  Spencer  and  Gillen,  Vol.  I,  p.  541.     Cf.  also  Tylor,  E.  B.,  Primitive 
Culture,  Vol.  I,  pp.  102  ff.,  for  many  similar  illustrations. 


V 


198  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

When  a  man  feels  he  is  capable  of  becoming  a  sorcerer,  he 
ventures  away  from  the  camp  quite  alone,  until  he  comes  to 
the  mouth  of  the  cave  where  the  spirits  dwell.  The  series 
of  strange  experiences  which  follow  need  not  be  described 
here.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  they  are  essentially  like  those 
e6mmonly  occurring  among   all  savage  peoples  in  similar 

ysituations,  and  that  they  depend  upon  the  psychic  mechanism 

^  of  self-suggestion. 

Among  the  Niger  tribes,  the  education  of  the  sorcerer  is 
again  private  and  largely  a  subjective  process.  The  novice 
gains  his  power  through  one  who  is  already  possessed  of  the 
magic  potency.  Having  been  instructed  by  the  sorcerer  in 
the  "mysteries  of  the  Great  Mother,  the  master  of  divina- 
tion turns  him  out  into  the  bush  all  by  himself  to  the  con- 
templation of  the  mysteries  which  lie  around  him,"  and  that 
he  may  commune  with  his  other  self.  The  results  of  this 
period  of  seclusion  are  of  the  same  general  nature  as  in  the 
case  of  the  Australians.  In  this  way  the  novice  imagines  he 
comes  into  possession  of  special  powers.* 

Among  the  Todas  the  diviners  and  sorcerers  are  people 
reputed  to  have  unusual  powers.  In  many  cases  the  power 
of  divination  is  inherited  from  some  near  relative,  but  "any 
one  who  showed  the  evidence  of  the  necessary  powers  might 
become  a  diviner."  ^  The  Toda  sorcerers  are  said  to  belong 
to  special  families,  and  each  one  probably  communicates 
his  power  to  one  or  more  of  his  sons.  Here,  then,  again, 
the  phenomena  of  magic  are  such  as  pertain  to  the  individ- 
ual rather  than  to  the  influence  of  the  group  consciousness. 
Among  the  Sakai  of  the  Malay  Peninsula,  the  magician  had 
peculiar  power  which  had  been  bequeathed  to  him  by  his 
ancestors.  Through  this  power  he  was  supposed  to  be  able 
to  bring  health  or  misfortune  and  disease  upon  his  fellows. 
*  Leonard,  op.  cU,  *  Rivers,  op.  cit.,  p.  249. 


MAGIC  AND   RELIGION 


199 


In  all  these  cases,  and  they  are  certainly  representative, 
there  is  the  constant  suggestion  that  the  worker  in  magic  deals 
with  some  mysterious  power,  a  power  which  is  impersonal, 
even  though  it  be  conferred  by  spirits.  That  there  is  some 
connection,  if'^rmt^o.n  jd^miiy^'tiptwppn  this  power  and  that 
of  the  *  mystic  potence '  referred  to  earlier  in  this  chapter,  and 
discussed  at  length  in  another  chapter,  seems  highly  probable 
to  the  present  writer.  Mayic.  thep„  t^fis  ^9  do  with  the,  private 
and  sometimes  nefarious  use  of  this  cosmir  for^R,  How  this 
same  conception  has  played  a  part  m  the  development  of 
religion  we  shall  see  in  the  chapter  upon  the  development  of 
deistic  ideas. 

We  have  had  repeated  occasion  to  emphasize  the  impor- 
tance of  the  social  atmosphere  in  the  development  of  reli- 
gious ideas.  It  will  be  instructive,  in  concluding  this  chapter, 
to  note  how  it  is  through  the  lack  of  this  social  factor  that 
magic  has  developed  many  of  its  peculiar  characteristics. 
Certain  means  suggest  themselves  as  available  in  a  social 
situation  that  would  not  in  other  situations  come  to  conscious- 
ness. This  is  easily  conceivable  when  we  reflect  that  the 
means  that  do  come  to  consciousness  are  always  more  or  less 
the  result  of  association  by  contiguity.  With  primitive  man 
and  with  ourselves  it  is  not  the  inherent  connection  of  things 
that  is  taken  into  account,  but  simply  the  elements  of  a  situa- 
tion that  are  commonly  and  prominently  before  the  atten- 
tion. Hence  the  particular  development  of  a  system  of 
mediation  and  control  will  depend  largely  upon  the  actual 
elements  in  the  situation  in  which  it  develops.  Merely  by 
way  of  illustration,  undoubtedly  one  of  the  important  elements 
in  any  primitive  social  structure  is  the  system  of  ideas  con- 
nected with  the  ancestors  of  the  group.  The  very  social 
consciousness  tends  to  retain  as  a  part  of  itself  the  members 
who  have  passed  away  as  well  as  the  living.    We  are  not,  of 


/^ 


^ 


200  DEVELOPMENT  OF  RELIGION 

course,  suggesting  that  religion  originates  in  ancestor-worship, 
but  simply  that  the  idea  of  ancestors  is  one  of  the  elements 
in  social  consciousness,  and  a  very  primitive  one,  too.  No 
better  illustration  of  this  can  be  found  than  the  myths  of  the 
Central  Australians  concerning  the  Alcheringa,  to  which  we 
have  already  referred.  As  we  have  seen,  the  Alcheringa^ 
without  being  really  worshipped,  are  bound  up  with  nearly 
all  the  ceremonies.  We  have  also  seen  how  many  of  the 
ceremonies  of  the  Kwakiutl  Indians  originate  in  the  adven- 
tures of  an  ancestor,  as  also  the  Mountain  Chant  of  the 
Navaho.  It  is  thus  by  no  means  theoretical  that  the  cus- 
toms of  a  tribe  are  involved  with  the  idea  of  their  ancestors, 
whether  these  latter  are  worshipped  or  not.  If  it  came 
to  be  believed  that  they  could  exert  an  important  rdle  in  the 
mediation  of  tribal  needs,  the  activities  associated  with  them 
would  easily  assume  the  form  of  worship,  or  would  tend  to 
adapt  themselves  to  the  maintaining  and  keeping  vital  of  the 
bonds  of  fellowship  between  the  past  and  present  portions 
of  the  group.  As  is  well  known,  W.  Robertson  Smith  has 
shown  that  sacrifice  among  the  Semites  was  such  a  practi- 
cal expedient.^  Worship,  with  them,  was  a  time  of  joyous 
communion.  The  interests  of  the  tribe  and  the  means  of 
securing  them  would  be  inseparably  connected  with  the 
various  expressions  of  the  tribal  life  and  consciousness.^ 
This  connection  of  ancestors  and  spirits  with  mediating 
activities  is  possible  only  in  the  case  of  those  activities  which 
have  developed  within  social  groups,  and  the  contrast  here 
with  magic  is  significant.  For  magic  there  are  no  ancestors, 
for  there  can  be  no  definite  consciousness  of  ancestors  out- 
side of  a  social  group.  For  magic  there  would  be  only  spirits, 
and  these  could  scarcely  have  the  definite  and  abiding  char- 

»  The  Religion  of  the  Semites,  Lectures  VII,  VIII. 
» Ihid,t  p.  240  ff. 


MAGIC  AND   RELIGION  201 

acter  that  is  possessed  by  the  spirit  beings  of  reh'gion,  since 
they  would  lack  the  sustaining  influence  of  a  tribal  conscious- 
ness. Under  these  conditions  it  would  be  an  easy  matter 
for  sympathetic  magic,  as  we  know  it,  to  develop,  that  is, 
a  form  of  magic  involving  no  reference  to  spirits  and  de- 
pending upon  a  supposed  interrelation  of  things  that  are 
associated  by  contiguity  or  similarity. 

By  general  consent,  in  so  far  as  magic  deals  with  spirits  at 
all,  it  concerns  itself  with  those  which  have  no  relation  of 
good-will  to  man,  no  stated  relation  of  any  kind,  in  fact,  but 
are  simply  wild  and  capricious.    The  distinction  of  gods  and 
wild  spirits  made  in  some  later  stages  of  culture  is  further 
evidence  of  the  connection  of  religion  with  the  definite  or- 
ganization of  a  social  bodjLaad  of  themore  or  less  indi;\[jrlj.ial.j, 
^nd  npy^-'soclal  character  of  pagic.    The  same  author  says  , 
also :  "  A  supernatural  being  as  such  is  not  a  god ;  he  becomes  , 
a  god  only  when  he  enters  into  some  stated  relation  with  > 
men,  or  rather  with  some  community  of  men.    In  the  be-  i 
lief  of  the  heathen  Arabs,  for  example,  nature  is  full  of  liv- 
ing beings  of  superhuman  kind,  the  jinn,  or  demons.    These 
jinn  are  not  pure  spirits,  but  corporeal  beings,  more  like 
beasts  than  men.  .  .  .     Like  wild  beasts  they  have,  for  the 
most  part,  no  friendly  or  stated  relations  with  men,  but  are 
outside  the  pale  of  man's  society,  and  frequent  savage  and 
deserted  places  far  from  the  wonted  tread  of  men.  .  .  . 
The  jinn  are  gods  without  worshippers,  and  a  god  who  loses 
his  worshippers  goes  back  to  the  class  from  which  he  came, 
as  a  being  of  vague'and  indefinite  powers  who,  having  no  per- 
sonal relations  to  men,  is  on  the  whole  to  be  regarded  as  an 
enemy.  ...     In  fact,  the  earth  may  be  said  to  be  parcelled  out 
between  demons  and  wild  beasts  on  the  one  hand  and  gods  j 
and  men  on  the  other.    To  the  former  belong  the  untrodden ' 
wilderness  with  all  its  unknown  perils,  the  wastes  and  jungles 


202  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

that  lie  outside  the  familiar  tracks  and  pasture-grounds  of 
the  tribe,  and  which  only  the  boldest  men  venture  upon 
without  terror;  to  the  latter  belong  the  regions  that  man 
knows  and  habitually  frequents,  and  within  which  he  has 
established  relations,  not  only  with  his  human  neighbors,  but 
with  the  supernatural  beings  that  have  their  haunts  side  by 
side  with  him."  *  We  have  quoted  at  length  because  the 
point  is  so  clearly  expressed  that  religion  is  connected  with 
the  familiar  and  the  habitual,  and  this  for  primitive  man  is 
largely  synonymous  with  his  social  group.  Beyond  this  is  the 
great  world  of  the  occasional  and  hence  the  mysterious.  It 
would  be  only  the  more  daring,  and  hence  the  few,  the  indi- 
viduals, who  would  have  dealings  with  this  outer  world.  The 
contrast  here  drawn  by  Smith  is,  of  course,  based  upon  the 
studies  made  by  him  in  the  beliefs  and  customs  of  the  primi- 
tive Semites.  In  the  main  we  do  not  believe  that  the  division 
is  as  marked  as  here  represented.  Whether  a  people  make 
this  definite  separation  between  religion  and  magic  probably 
depends  upon  an  intricate  combination  of  circumstances. 
The  development  of  a  strong  tribal  life,  or  definite  tribal 
feelings  such  as  evidently  belonged  to  the  Semites,  as  seen,  for 
instance,  in  their  sacrifices,  which  were  originally  communal 
festivals,  would  be  an  important  factor  in  such  a  distinction. 
The  point  we  have  wished  to  make  in  this  discussion  is  not 
that  religion  is  essentially  social  and  magic  essentially  individ- 
ual, but  that  the  former  develops  most  readily  in  the  atmos- 
phere of  the  group,  and  that  the  latter  is  relatively  an  in- 
dividualistic affair.  Magic  is  simply  primitive  man's  science, 
and  there  is  nothing  to  hinder  the  tribe  from  availing  it- 
self of  the  scientific  knowledge  in  the  hands  of  its  mem- 
bers. Many  social  groups  may  and  have  adopted  magical 
practices.  Magic  furnishes  the  community  with  a  technique 
*  Religion  of  the  Semites^  pp.  112-114. 


MAGIC  AND  RELIGION  203    , 

for  doing  many  simple  things.  It  is  a  postulate  available  for 
many  emergencies,  and  it  is  conceivable  that  it  might  stand 
for  an  attitude  of  approach  toward  many  possible  difficul- 
ties without  its  practice,  in  any  formulated  way,  becoming  a 
part  of  social  habit.  '^As  a  postulate,  it  would  lend  itself  to 
each  individual  in  the  meeting  of  his  own  difficulties.  We 
can  see  that  in  multitudes  of  cases  the  difficulty  would  be 
only  occasional,  and  in  many  others  it  would  interest  only  the 
individual  concerned.  It  is  also  easy  to  see  that  in  a  difficulty 
of  either  of  these  kinds  the  initiative  of  the  individual  would  be 
largely  called  into  play,  if  not  in  devising  a  new  method,  at 
least  in  adapting  the  old  device  to  the  new  situation.  Magic 
would  thus  be  readily  associated  with  the  privaJje^ftdwaduaL/ 
and  in  tribes  in  which  the  power  of  custom  was  strong,  this 
particular  aspect  of  magic,  which,  as  we  have  reason  to  believe, 
is  the  larger  aspect  of  it,  would  be  outlawed.  In  communities 
of  the  opposite  type,  that  is,  those  of  loose  organization,  magic 
might  be  so  thoroughly  taken  up  by  the  group  as  to  be  iiV/ 
distinguishable  from  religion.  Many  of  the  North  American 
Indian  tribes  illustrate  this  aspect  of  the  development  of 
magic.  This  is  particularly  true  of  the  Plains  Indians. 
Major  Powell  says,  however,  of  the  Indians  in  general:* 
"The  medicine-man  is  an  important  functionary  among  all 
the  tribes  of  North  America,  and  medicine  practices  constitute 
an  important  element  in  the  daily  life  of  the  Indian  tribe. 
But  medicine  practices  cannot  be  differentiated  from  religious 
rites  and  observances.  The  doctor  is  priest  and  the  priest 
is  doctor,  the  medicine-man  is  priest-doctor." 

*  Fifth  Annual  Report  of  the  Bureau  of  Ethnology,  p.  xlvi. 


X 


CHAPTER   VIII 

FURTHER   CONSroERATIONS   REGARDING   THE   EVOLUTION 
OF   THE   RELIGIOUS   ATTITUDE 

The  tracing  of  some  sort  of  an  evolution  in  religious  beliefs 
and  practices  has  long  been  a  favorite  task  with  those  engaged 
in  the  scientific  study  of  religion.  We  have  already  pointed 
out  *  certain  conditions  under  which  the  concept  of  evolution 
is  applicable  to  the  religious  attitude.  In  the  light  of  the 
material  offered  in  Chapters  IV  and  V,  there  are  now  some 
other  phases  of  the  question  which  require  discussion. 

We  have  shown  that  the  religious  attitude  is  an  outgrowth 
from  a  social  matrix  of  some  sort,  that  it  is,  in  fact,  rather 
definitely  related  to  the  type  of  social  organization  prevailing 
within  a  group.  To  deal  adequately  with  the  problem  of 
the  evolution  of  religion,  we  should  be  able  to  formulate  cer- 
tain criteria  for  determining  the  relative  degree  of  organiza- 
tion possessed  by  a  given  social  body.  We  shall  try  presently 
to  see  to  what  extent  this  is  possible.  This  will  furnish  a 
,  basis  for  some  conclusions  regarding  the  relationship  which 
^  '•Wt  may  subsist  between  different  forms  of  primitive  religion, 
Sand  hence  may  reveal  something  as  to  the  nature  of  the  evolu- 
^ — ''^tionary  series  which  it  may  be  possible  to  trace  in  religious 
phenomena. 

The  point  of  view  of  most  students  of  this  subject  has, 
unfortunately,  been  more  or  less  determined  by  systematic 
considerations,  and  the  procedure  has  often  amounted  to 
little  more  than  a  series  of  attempts  to  find  in  the  various 

*  Chap.  II,  supra. 
204 


FURTHER   CONSroERATIONS  205 

religions  of  different  periods  and  stages  of  culture  an  embodi- 
ment, in  greater  or  less  degree,  of  some  concept  such  as  mono- 
theism, the  meaning  of  which  is  predetermined  by  the  inves- 
tigator, that  is,  carried  over  bodily  as  a  perfectly  determinable 
quantity  from  his  own  universe  of  ideas.  It  has  also  been 
common  to  work  out  in  the  same  manner  some  supposedly 
evolutionary  series  such  as  the  following.  Beginning  with 
fetichism,  religions  are  said  to  pass  through  animism,  natu- 
ralism, higher  pantheism,  henotheism,  and  ethical  mono- 
theism. All  such  schemes  have  a  certain  rough  and  ready 
merit,  but  at  their  best  they  fail  to  take  into  account  impor- 
tant facts  regarding  religion,  not  the  least  of  which  is  the 
great  complexity  of  the  data  involved,  so  that  the  series,  so 
painstakingly  elaborated,  is  apt  to  be  entirely  spurious. 

As  we  have  seen,  some  investigators  ^  have  held  that  there 
is  a  germinal  *  idea '  or  *  instinct '  present  in  primitive  religions 
which  by  degrees  attains,  or  may  attain,  to  more  and  more 
adequate  expression,  or  that  there  have  been  successive 
*  revelations'  of  a  certain  concept  among  different  peoples 
and  in  different  times.  The  phenomena  of  the  ethnic  reli- 
gions then  divide  themselves  into  real  religion  and  into  super- 
stition. They  are  significant  in  proportion  as  they  reveal 
some  trace  of  this  instinct,  revelation,  or  whatever  the  pri- 
mordial datum  is  taken  to  be ;  otherwise  primitive  beliefs  are 
largely  negative  quantities.  These  views  are  really  the  direct 
descendants  of  the  once  prevalent  idea  that  true  religion  was, 
in  all  essentials,  originally  revealed  to  man,  and  that,  in  so 
far  as  there  has  been  any  evolution,  it  has  been,  in  the  main, 
negative.^   The  adherents  of  the  instinct  type  of  theory  can,  of 

'  E.g.  Max  Miiller,  Tide,  Jastrow,  and  others ;  also  H.  R.  Marshall, 
Instinct  and  Reason. 

'  For  recent  expositions  of  this  point  of  view,  cf.  Nassau's  Fetichism  in  West 
Africa^  Chap.  Ill,  and  Trumbull's  The  Blood  Covenant. 


2o6  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

course,  stand  for  a  positive  evolution,  but  if  they  ever  faced 
the  problem  in  a  detailed  and  thorough  manner,  they  would 
apparently  have  some  difficulty  in  showing  how  an  instinct 
with  no  natural  history  could  evolve  in  the  terms  of  an  unre- 
lated economic,  social,  and  intellectual  milieu. 

It  is  not,  however,  our  purpose  here  to  attempt  a  systematic 
criticism  of  these  points  of  view,  but  rather  merely  to  state 
that  the  resulting  methods  of  treating  religion  throw  over  it 
a  false  simplicity,  and  that  the  problem  of  evolution  in  reli- 
gion requires  further  and  more  critical  examination.  The 
theories  above  referred  to  have  borrowed  their  concepts  and 
method  more  or  less  directly  from  the  biological  sciences, 
where  it  is  doubtless  legitimate  to  arrange  in  series  various 
types  of  structure,  such  as  reproductive  organs,  nervous  sys- 
tems, and  so  forth.  From  such  considerations  some  have 
come  to  the  conclusion  that  the  diverse  forms  of  religion 
represent  necessary  stages  in  the  development  of  the  higher 
types  of  religion.  But,  even  in  biology,  there  are  limitations 
to  the  significance  of  the  series  which  may  be  constructed. 
Each  animal  and  plant  form  stands  at  the  end  of  a  long  pro- 
cess of  development,  and  is  in  no  sense  actually  intermediate 
between  certain  other  existing  forms.  In  an  even  greater 
degree  the  different  manifestations  of  religion  are  discrete  and 
non-continuous.  Of  course  it  is  possible  to  arrange  types 
of  religion  in  a  series  in  the  same  way  in  which  types  of 
animal  structure  may  be  arranged,  but,  for  reasons  which 
we  shall  develop,  the  seeming  connections  between  the  mem- 
bers are  more  than  likely  to  be  imaginary.  In  this  connec- 
tion the  words  of  Galton  are  apposite :  — 

"  Whenever  search  is  made  for  intermediate  forms  between 
widely  divergent  varieties,  whether  they  be  of  plants  or  of 
animals,  of  weapons  or  utensils,  of  customs,  religion,  or 
language,  or  of  any  other  product  of  evolution,  a  long  and 


FURTHER   CONSIDERATIONS  207 

orderly  series  can  usually  be  made  out,  each  member  of  which 
differs  in  an  almost  imperceptible  degree  from  adjacent 
specimens.  But  it  does  not  at  all  follow,  because  these 
intermediate  stages  have  been  found  to  exist,  that  they  were 
the  very  stages  passed  through  in  the  course  of  evolution. 
Counter-evidence  exists  in  abundance,  not  only  of  the  appear- 
ance of  considerable  sports,  but  of  their  remarkable  stability 
in  heredity  transmission.  Many  of  the  specimens  of  inter- 
mediate forms  may  have  been  unstable  varieties  whose  de- 
scendants had  reverted;  they  might  be  looked  upon  as 
tentative  and  faltering  steps  taken  along  parallel  courses 
of  evolution,  and  afterwards  retraced."  ^ 

He  who  supposes  that  the  method  of  biology  can  be  applied 
offhand  to  social  phenomena  certainly  falls  into  a  serious  error. 
The  strictures  which  Galton  urges  are  particularly  appli- 
cable in  the  science  of  religion.  True,  the  stages  of  culture 
known  to  us  may  be  serially  arranged,  but  it  does  not  follow 
that  the  low-grade  forms  are  preliminary  steps  to  higher 
grades.  Many  of  them  are  quite  likely  side  developments 
on  some  plane  of  arrest,  or  unfruitful  exaggerations  of  planes 
of  culture  that  in  some  way  lost  the  cue  to  progress,  or  got 
detached  from  its  main  stream.  Conditions  of  this  sort 
would  be  entirely  possible,  even  if  religious  development  con- 
sisted in  the  unfolding  of  some  primitive  instinct  or  'percep- 
tion of  the  infinite.'  If,  however,  it  can  be  shown  that  the 
religious  attitude  is  a  differentiation  from  the  more  imme- 
diate aspects  of  the  life-process,  that  the  one  is  an  organic 
part  of  the  other,  neither  of  them  possessing  a  primordial 
essence  peculiar  to  itself,  it  would  seem  that  the  different 
phenomena  called  religious  would  be  even  more  discrete 
than  is  the  case  with  apparently  related  forms  of  animal 

^  Natural  Inheritance,  1889,  pp.  32,  33. 


2o8  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

life.  So  complex  are  the  elements  which  constitute,  and  so 
subtle  are  the  forces  which  cooperate  in  the  determination 
of  any  given  social  fact,  it  is  generally  unsafe  to  compare  one 
with  another  as  one  might  compare  the  reproductive  systems 
of  various  plants.  Only  the  primary  life  activities  of  different 
peoples  can  be  so  compared.  Variations  in  these  elementary 
processes  bring  about,  on  derived  planes,  indefinitely  varied 
results.  The  forms  of  religion  are  so  definitely  parts  of 
the  social  milieu  which  produces  them  that  we  cannot  attempt 
to  arrange  them  in  a  scale  of  higher  and  lower  until  we  are 
able- to  evaluate  the  social  background,  and  this  is  possible 
only  so  roughly  that,  with  our  present  knowledge,  the  scaling 
of  religions  is  scarcely  worth  attempting.  That  is  to  say, 
a  group  may  be  far  advanced  in  certain  aspects  of  its  social 
organization  while,  paradoxically  enough,  it  may  be  very 
backward  in  its  economic  development.^  So  of  every  other 
phase,  in  some  respects  the  group  may  be  progressive  and 
in  others  backward  or  even  degenerate.  What,  then,  can  we 
say  of  the  relative  status  of  such  a  group  as  compared  with 
others  which  may  show  retardation  or  progress  in  still  differ- 
ent ways? 

Types  of  social  organization  are,  we  believe,  closely  re- 
lated to  the  sort  of  problems  which  people  have  had  to  face, 
or  to  the  particular  aspects  of  the  life-process  which  have 
chanced  to  attract  their  attention.  In  the  face  of  some  con- 
crete economic  difficulty,  for  instance,  which  engages  the 
attention  of  all  the  individuals  of  a  group,  there  would  always 
be,  sooner  or  later,  some  adjustment  of  the  entire  social  body, 
and  in  time,  perhaps,  an  actual  development  of  a  type  of 
social  structure  which  would  be  continuously  able  to  deal 
adequately  with   the   situation.    Thus,   under  pressure  of 

*  This  general  problem  of  unequal  development  is  tersely  discussed  by  E.  B. 
Tylor,  Primitive  Culture,  Vol.  I,  pp.  24  f.  (ist  ed.) 


FURTHER   CONSIDERATIONS  209 

certain  economic  problems,  a  group  may  differentiate  into 
various  producing  classes  with  intricate  rules  governing  the 
sharing  of  food/  Various  taboos  grow  out  of  the  food 
problem,  rules  designed  to  limit  the  consumption  of  different 
foods  to  particular  classes  within  the  group.  To  guard  (in 
part  at  least)  against  surprise  from  without,  encampment 
rules  develop.^  In  places  where  the  maintenance  of  a  unified 
social  consciousness  is  necessary,  there  are  elaborate  initiation 
ceremonies  attendant  upon  the  entrance  of  the  youth  into 
manhood.  Of  such  ceremonies  among  certain  of  the  Aus- 
tralian natives,'  Howitt  says  that  they  are  intended  to  impart 
those  qualities  to  the  boys  which  will  make  them  more  worthy 
members  of  society.  The  totemic  organizations  of  many 
primitive  peoples  is  a  further  type  of  social  differentiation 
which  possibly  has  a  connection  with  some  phase  of  the  life- 
process,  although  what  the  connection  is  is  at  present  some- 
what obscure.  The  origin  of  the  exogamic  type  of  social 
organization  is  also  a  matter  of  dispute.*  It  is  quite  possible 
that  it  was  at  the  first  an  unconscious  product  of  natural 
selection,  but  in  its  later  development  it  has  without  doubt 
been  consciously  elaborated  to  an  enormous  extent.  However 
that  may  be,  whether  its  growth  has  been  conscious  or  uncon- 
scious,^ it  certainly  does  represent  an  organized  reaction 
of  the  social  body  to  a  practical  situation. 

A  well-organized  social  group  is,  then,  a  society  possessing 
sufficient  solidarity  to  maintain  and  to  enforce  customs  of 

*  Cf .  Howitt,  Native  Tribes  of  Soidheast  Australia,  p.  756.  Nansen,  Eskimo 
Life,  also  gives  many  illustrations  of  the  same  thing,  as  do  other  writers  on 
the  Eskimo. 

^  Howitt,  op.  cit.,  p.  776. 

3  Op.  cit.,  pp.  535  f.,  549,  559. 

*  Cf.  W.  I.  Thomas,  "Psychology  of  exogamy,"  Sex  and  Society^  pp.  175- 
197. 

*  Howitt,  op.  cit.,  p.  284. 

P 


210  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

some  sort  with  reference  to  exigencies  of  life  in  a  natural 
environment,  even  though  it  have  no  political  head  or  chief- 
tainship of  any  sort.  If  a  group  has  few  insistent  problems  to 
face,  we  shall  find  within  it  little  unification  of  custom  and 
a  low  degree  of  social  organization.  This  regulative  social 
structure  is  the  most  primitive  form  of  religion.  Whether 
there  is  also  present  a  religious  consciousness  or  not,  is  a  matter 
of  indifference.  If,  however,  mental  attitudes  are  aroused  in 
connection  with  these  activities,  they  may  be  regarded  as  con- 
stituting the  elementary  religious  consciousness. 

To  illustrate  the  above  statements  and  make  clear  their 
bearing  upon  the  problem  of  the  evolution  of  religion,  we  may 
refer  again  to  the  Arunta  of  central  Australia.  As  far  as  tribal 
organization  and  the  various  means  of  social  control  are  con- 
cerned, these  people  are  relatively  advanced  for  an  ethnic 
race.  Their  marriage  system  is  worked  out  with  elaborate 
detail,  and  they  count  descent  through  the  male.  And  yet, 
according  to  their  observers  (Messrs.  Spencer  and  Gillen), 
they  have  no  system  of  chieftainship,  neither  theistic  ideas 
of  any  sort,  and  their  economic  development,  while  it  is  in  a 
way  adapted  to  their  natural  conditions,  is,  nevertheless,  most 
crude.  Thus,  while  living  in  a  climate  that  is  sometimes  very 
severe,  they  are  unclothed,  and  their  primary  method  of  in- 
suring an  abundant  supply  of  staple  articles  of  food  is  based 
upon  various  and  elaborate  magical  rites,  so  called,  rather  than 
upon  even  a  feeble  reconstruction  of  their  food  environment. 
They  are  said  to  have  no  religion  because  they  have  no  notions 
of  gods,  and  yet,  if  religion  consists  in  certain  mental  attitudes 
and  social  functions  rather  than  in  a  certain  conceptual  frame- 
work, we  believe  a  good  case  for  their  religion  can  be  made  out. 
Now  just  as  it  would  be  difficult  to  determine,  on  the  whole, 
the  social  status  of  such  a  group,  because  of  the  very  unequal 
development  of  the  various  aspects  of  its  life,  so  it  would  be 


FURTHER  CONSIDERATIONS  21 1 

hard  to  say  where  its  religion  belongs,  comparatively  speaking, 
or  to  say  offhand  that  it  is  related  in  any  sequential  fashion  to 
the  religion  of  some  other  group.  Such  a  religion,  granted 
that  it  is  one,  since  it  lacks  the  conceptual  framework  that  is 
usually  associated  with  even  primitive  faiths,  must  be  deter- 
mined solely  by  its  functional  relationships  to  the  various 
expressions  of  group  life.  An  attempt  to  work  out  a  statement 
of  the  Arunta  religion  would  make  it  quite  clear  that  religions, 
generally,  are  so  definitely  the  outcome  of  particular  social 
conditions  that  no  such  external  characteristics  as  fetichism,  ^. 
animism,  theism,  and  the  like,  can  place  the  religions  of  differ- 
ent groups  in  any  vital  relationship.  A  people  which  possesses 
no  gods  is  not  necessarily  in  a  prereligious  stage  of  develop- 
ment. It  may  have  had  deities,  and,  through  some  peculiar 
turn  in  its  social  and  economic  development,  it  may  have  lost 
them  (e.g.  the  case  of  the  Todas,  mentioned  in  a  following 
paragraph).  Nor  is  a  monotheistic  belief  an  indication  in 
every  case  of  high  religious  plane.  A  tribe  in  the  interior  of 
Borneo,  of  low-grade  social  development,  is  said  to  believe 
in  a  supreme  god,  while  tribes  which  are  more  advanced  in 
many  ways  living  along  the  coast  are  ordinary  polytheists.^ 

Again,  while  the  Arunta  people,  as  before  stated,  have  no 
theistic  ideas,  other  tribes,  on  the  southeast  coast  of  Australia, 
have  a  concept  of  an  'All-father,'  which,  though  remotely 
theistic  in  the  tribes  studied  by  Howitt,^  attains  among  others 
the  definite  qualities  of  a  deity  who  is  revered  and  to  some 
extent  prayed  to.^  In  these  cases,  and  others  of  the  sort,  we 
can  scarcely  say  that  the  religion  of  one  tribe  is  superior  to  that 
of  another,  but  rather  that  the  evolution  of  the  concepts  of 
higher  values  has  followed  diverse  lines  and  that  the  matrix 

^  Hose  and  MacDougall,  "Men  and  animals  in  Sarawak,"  Journal  of  Aw 
thropological  Institute,  Vol.  XXXI,  p.  213. 
^  The  Native  Tribes  of  Southeast  Australia. 
'  Parker,  The  Euahlayi  Tribe,  Chap.  II, 


212  DEVELOPMENT   OF   RELIGION 

of  social  life,  of  which  each  is  a  part,  must  be  taken  into  ac- 
count in  all  attempts  to  valuate  them.  In  other  words,  that 
there  is  no  direct  relation  between  the  atheism  of  the  Arunta 
and  the  monotheism  of  the  Euahlayi. 

One  other  illustration,  out  of  many,  may  be  given.  The 
Todas  of  India,  Rivers  ^  tells  us,  have  at  present  very  vague 
ideas  of  deities ;  but  they  were  once,  he  believes,  quite  defi- 
nite. All  the  attention  of  these  people  is  at  present  cen- 
tred in  their  dairies  and  the  rituals  connected  therewith. 
They  seem  to  be  losing  an  old  religion,  in  which  there  were 
deities,  and  slowly  evolving  a  new  one,  in  which  their  highest 
value-concepts  are  symbolized  in  other  than  deistic  terms. 
At  least  their  religious  ideas  are  changing,  and  this  much,  at 
any  rate,  seems  clear,  that,  in  some  way,  in  the  not  very 
remote  past,  their  interest  in  their  old  religion  died  out  because 
that  religion  failed  to  express  sufficiently  the  new  interests 
which  were  gradually  awakening  among  them.  By  some 
means,  external  conditions,  possibly  their  economic  environ- 
ment, underwent  radical  change,  and  in  time  nothing  was  left 
in  their  lives  to  make  the  old  ideas  and  rituals  significant  to 
them  of  any  values. 

We  do  not  need  to  raise  the  question  here  as  to  whether 
the  social  organization  of  the  peoples  referred  to  above 
belongs  to  a  high  or  low  order  of  culture.  In  fact,  even  the 
simplest  extant  society  is  so  complicated  that  it  is  usually 
highly  developed  in  at  least  one  of  its  phases.  There  are  no 
doubt  other  sections  of  the  natural  races,  more  advanced  in 
some  phases  of  their  culture,  but  having  a  less  complex  social 
structure  than  the  Australians.  We  do  not  mean  to  advance 
the  idea  that  social  structure  is  in  itself  desirable,  but  simply 
that,  with  reference  to  the  origin  and  development  of  the 
religious  attitude,  it  seems  to  be  of  more  importance  than 

»  The  Todas. 


FURTHER  CONSIDERATIONS  213 

some  of  the  other  results  of  human  evolution.  The  negroes  -^ 
of  West  Africa,  referred  to  already,  probably  represent  a 
more  advanced  status  of  culture,  economically  and  politically, 
than  do  the  Australians,  but  they  do  not  possess  that  perma- 
nent solidarity  of  structure  which  imposes  upon  each  indi- 
vidual a  certain  definite  type  of  conduct  *  and  restrains  him 
from  other  types.  Hence  we  can  say  that,  while  the  Africans 
have  manifold  spirit-beliefs,  their  religion  is  in  some  respects 
of  a  lower  grade  than  that  of  the  Australians  (pace  Messrs. 
Howitt  and  Spencer  and  Gillen). 

In  turning  from  these  illustrations,  let  us  emphasize  again 
that  the  terms  'fetichism,'  'animism,'  or  even  *  monotheism,' 
have  no  special  significance  as  blanket  concepts  to  be  applied 
right  and  left  to  the  phenomena  of  primitive  religion.  The 
developmental  series  which  may  be  worked  out  in  such  terms 
is  more  than  likely  to  be  spurious.  A  comparative  study, 
as  far  as  it  is  possible  at  all,  might,  however,  start  from  the 
assumption  that,  in  different  social  matrices,  there  are  special- 
ized attitudes  having  functional  elements  in  common,  such  as 
might  be  called  religious.  It  would  seem,  then,  that  some 
criterion  of  the  religions  might  be  formulated  in  terms  of 
social  psychology,  which  would  at  least  serve  as  a  working 
hypothesis. 

But  as  far  as  the  evolution  of  this  religious  tendency  is  con- 
cerned, it  is  clear,  at  least  as  far  as  primitive  religions  are 
concerned,  that  we  do  not  have  some  constant  element  to 
deal  with,  an  element  which  gradually  becomes  more  and 
more  explicit.  We  have  rather  an  indefinite  number  of  dis- 
crete attitudes  which,  within  limits,  bear  a  definite  relation  to 
the  matrix  of  experience  out  of  which  they  have  evolved. 

^  We  say  this  advisedly,  for,  of  course,  the  West  Africans  have  customs  in 
plenty,  but  we  believe  our  statement  is  still  true,  comparatively  speaking,  if 
these  peoples  are  taken  in  connection  with  such  as  those  of  Central  Australia. 


214  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

These  are  alike  and  yet  different.  They  are  alike  in  respect 
to  their  religious  character,  which  certain  conditions,  in 
various  stages  of  society,  have  caused  to  develop.  All  of  the 
results  of  these  conditions  may  be  csLlhd  forms  of  religious  con- 
sciousness because  of  their  peculiar  relation  to  the  matrix 
of  practical  activities.^  On  the  other  hand,  they  are  different 
in  so  far  as  they  have  sprung  from  different  grades  of  culture 
or  from  different  sets  of  activities  on  the  same  grade  of  culture. 
In  other  words,  from  a  given  stage  of  culture  a  corresponding 
religious  attitude  may  be  differentiated,  the  immediate  pre- 
cursors of  which  attitude  are  the  more  direct  and,  in  the  main, 
the  more  practical  attitudes  of  the  life  of  the  group.  Almost 
any  conceivable  practical  adjustment  may  theoretically,  and 
has,  in  fact,  as  a  matter  of  history,  served  as  the  basis  of  a 
religious  attitude.  It  is  manifest,  if  the  religious  attitude 
is  thus  a  secondary  matter,  or  a  product,  and  if  these  are  the 
conditions  of  its  appearance,  that  religious  types  are  not 
related  to  one  another  in  causal  or  sequential  terms,  but 
rather  in  this,  that  they  are  all  alike  connected  with  certain 
cultural  levels. 

The  problem  of  the  evolution  of  religion  is,  then,  the  problem 
of  tracing  the  connection  between  various  religions  and  the 
cultural  matrix  out  of  which  they  have  sprung,  of  noting  how, 
in  certain  environments,  and  in  the  face  of  certain  life-prob- 
lems, the  religious  type  of  attitude  tends  to  develop  in  particu- 
lar ways,  and  how,  in  like  manner,  its  content  and  form  vary 
with  these  external  conditions.  The  point  is  not  that  a  pre- 
existing religious  instinct  finds  expression  in  the  important 
practical  activities  of  a  group  of  people,  but  rather  that  these 
activities  by  their  very  importance  produce  a  peculiar  differen- 
tiation of  consciousness  that  may  be  called  religious,  and 
hence,  in  so  far,  themselves  become  religious  acts.  Thus, 
*  Cf.  p.  126,  supra. 


FURTHER   CONSIDERATIONS  215 

"Worship  of  ancestors  naturally  predominates  where  family 
feeling  is  the  strongest,  and  where  the  head  of  the  family 
holds  the  position  of  authority  over  a  large  number  of 
dependants."  ^  In  the  case  of  negroes  described  by  Ellis,^ 
there  is  little  family  solidarity  or  family  feeling,  and  conse- 
quently there  is  no  development  of  the  religious  attitude  on 
this  side  of  their  life.  The  chief  matters  of  concern  are  the 
forces  of  nature  manifested  in  ocean  and  river,  in  the  falling  of 
great  trees,  and  in  the  pestilence.  Certain  adjusting  activities 
cluster  about  these  objects  of  attention,  and  out  of  them  a 
religious  attitude  eventually  grows. 

The  religion  of  the  primitive  Semites  has  been  shown  ^  to  be 
directly  connected  with  their  dependence  upon  the  date  palm 
for  food  and  with  their  matriarchal  organization  of  society. 
The  central  object  of  attention  of  the  Head-hunting  Dyaks  is, 
of  course,  the  capture  of  enemies'  heads,  with  its  accompany- 
ing perils.  The  religious  attitude  of  the  Kwakiutl  Indians 
is  definitely  connected  with  their  complex  system  of  secret 
societies.  That  of  the  Central  Australians  is  evidently  an 
outgrowth  of  their  somewhat  strenuous  food  conditions.  In 
all  the  cases  just  mentioned,  and  many  more  might  as  easily 
be  offered,  we  find  a  somewhat  definite  type  of  social  inter- 
est about  which  most  of  the  activities  of  the  group  centre. 
These  activities  may  be  called  either  practical  or  religious, 
with  almost  equal  justice  from  the  standpoint  of  the  people 
Involved. 

The  point  which  we  have  desired  to  make  clear  is  that  certain 
elements  in  the  life  of  a  people  come  to  consciousness  as  having 
peculiar  value,  and  therefore  that  the  religious  attitude,  a 
special  case  of  this  larger  sense  of  value,  is  directly  related  to, 

*  Morris,  Journal  of  the  American  Oriental  Society,  Vol.  24,  p.  411. 
2  The  Tshi-speaking  Peoples  of  the  Gold  Coast, 

•  G.  A.  Barton,  Semitic  Origins. 


2i6  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

and  is  an  integral  part  of,  the  practical  and  spontaneous 
adjustments  of  the  people  concerned.  If  this  is  the  correct 
view,  there  is  no  such  thing  as  a  permanently  existing  reli- 
gious instinct,  sense,  or  attitude,  which  continues  indepen- 
dently of  these  objective  conditions  of  life. 

We  may  say,  if  we  choose,  that  the  human  species  is  so  organ- 
ized that  it  has  the  faculty  of  realizing  value ;  but  nothing  is 
gained  by  such  a  statement,  any  more  than  general  psychology 
would  profit  by  the  dictum  that  man  has  a  faculty  of  perception 
or  of  reason.  Man  does  not  perceive  all  of  the  time  or  reason 
all  of  the  time,  but  if  placed  in  certain  situations  he  does  act  in 
these  characteristic  ways.  There  has  been  no  continuum  of 
reason  or  perception,  but  merely  various  discrete  acts  related 
definitely  to  the  objective  conditions  in  which  he  is  from  time 
to  time  placed.  We  hold  that  the  case  is  the  same  with  reli- 
gion. One  has  here  to  deal  with  peculiar  kinds  of  reactions 
which  appear  with  reference  to  all  varieties  of  objective  cir- 
cumstances, provided  the  latter  have  acquired  a  certain  sort 
of  relationship  to  a  social  group  of  some  sort. 

We  should  expect,  then,  to  find  that  religious  forms  do  not 
develop  into  other  forms,  but  rather  that  they  are  the  succes- 
sive expressions  of  various  ages  and  changing  environments.* 
Thus,  we  venture  to  assert,  the  piacjilar  sacrifice  of  the  later 
Semitic  religions  can  be  said,  only  in  an  external  sense,  to 
have  developed  from  the  earlier  sacrificial  meal.  These  two 
types  of  religious  expression  were  responses  to  two  different 
types  of  needs,  or  conceptions  of  value.  It  is  true  that  the 
objective  form  of  the  reaction  was  in  all  probability  continuous 
throughout  all  periods  of  Semitic  history ;  in  other  words,  that 
the  sacrificial  meal  gradually  changed  into  certain  later  forms^ 
but  there  was  no  continuity  on  the  psychical  side.  The  ob- 
jective continuity  was  simply  the  vague  one  of  habit  or  cus- 
*  Hoffding,  Philosophy  of  Religion,  p.  242. 


FURTHER   CONSIDERATIONS  217 

torn.  As  Semitic  society  met  new  problems  and  exigencies  of 
life,  the  expression  of  the  religious  attitude,  when  it  appeared 
at  all,  naturally  fell  into  the  conventional  forms,  modifying 
them  gradually,  however.  It  is  so  of  all  religious  develop- 
ment. The  external  form  of  expression  may  serve  to  keep  > 
alive,  or  to  reexcite,  a  primitive  attitude,  but  more  likely  the\  / 
attitude  itself  is  different  because  it  has  arisen  out  of  new  cir- 
cumstances, and,  in  the  end,  the  traditional  form  of  expression 
is  itself  gradually  transformed.  The  only  continuity,  then, 
in  religious  evolution  is,  we  hold,  the  continuity  of  the  social 
background,  which,  under  varying  conditions,  produces  vary- 
ing types  of  religious  growth. 

In  speaking,  then,  of  different  stages  of  the  religious  con- 
sciousness, we  cannot  mean  that  a  certain  attitude  has  been        '1 
continuously  unfolding  in  the  history  of  the  race,  but  rather 
that,  here  and  there,  are  to  be  found  divers  types  of  develop- 
ment which  may,  on  the  whole,  be  classed  as  religious.    No 
religion  is  related  to  another  except  on  the  general  ground     / 
that  all  are  expressions  of  what  man  feels  to  be  ultimate  value\/ 
the  expression  of  the  most  far-reaching  appreciations  of  life 
and  its  problems  which  he  is  capable  of  feeling  upon  his  stage 
of  culture  and  with  his  environment.     Consequently  the 
forms  of  religion  are  as  diverse  as  the  infinitely  varied  circum- 
stances of  human  life  and  struggle  can  make  them. 

The  foregoing  discussion,  not  merely  in  this  but  also  in  all 
the  preceding  chapters,  has  been  concerned  with  relatively 
primitive  phases  of  religion.  It  is  in  types  of  this  sort,  partic- 
ularly, that  the  statements  made  regarding  the  discreteness  of 
religious  phenomena  are  especially  applicable.  Here  also  is  Jo 
be  found  that  lack  of  relation  between  the  religious  conscious- 
ness of  one  age  and  that  of  another.  These  statements  must, 
however,  be  gradually  modified  as  one  has  to  deal  with  sue-  , 
cessively  better  or  more  elaborately  developed  religions.    The 


2i8  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

primary  reason  for  this  is  that  all  those  psychical  attitudes  in 
which  human  nature  maybe  organized  tend  to  acquire  a  certain 
individuality  and  momentum  which  renders  it  possible  for 
them  to  develop  to  some  extent  upon  their  own  account.  This 
has  certainly  been  true  of  all  the  great  historical  religions, 
such  as  Buddhism,  Judaism,  Mahometanism,  and  Christianity. 
To  illustrate  and  develop  this  point  we  may  derive  real  assist- 
ance from  certain  aspects  of  biological  evolution. 

In  the  plant  and  animal  world  it  seems  to  be  true  that  the 
different  forms,  or  types,  acquire  certain  peculiar  *  directions 
of  movement,'  together  with  a  momentum  which,  within  limits, 
carries  them  along  a  course  of  their  own.  Variations  do  not 
seem  to  occur  altogether  at  random,  but  in  certain  directions 
peculiar  to  the  species  itself  and  conditioned  apparently  by 
its  previous  variations.  Thus  two  different  plant  or  animal 
forms  in  the  same  environment  are  affected  by,  or  select  and 
react  to,  quite  different  aspects  of  that  environment.  The  life 
history  of  a  given  species  seems  to  render  it  susceptible  to  one 
type  of  influence  and  irresponsive  to  another,  or  it  may  be 
better  to  say  that  each  form  responds  to  a  stimulus  in  a  manner 
peculiarly  its  own,  and  that  this  is  increasingly  true  as  the 
type  develops.  From  generation  to  generation  the  momentum 
in  some  particular  direction  increases,  and  a  correspondingly 
unique  individuality  is  gradually  built  up.  In  any  evolution- 
ary process  it  is  necessary  to  take  into  account  not  only  the 
physical  environment  but  also  the  form  itself  as  a  determining 
factor. 

What  is  true  of  plant  and  animal  life  is  apparently  true  of 
different  varieties  of  social  evolution.  A  social  group  also 
gradually  acquires  a  certain  individuality,  and  all  the  changes 
in  the  various  phases  of  its  life  are  largely  determined  by  this 
individuality.^    Its  ideals,  its  concepts,  its  valuations,  are  all 

>  Cf.  Tylor,  Primitive  Culture,  Vol.  I,  p.  63  (ist  ed.). 

\ 


FURTHER   CONSIDERATIONS  219 

cast  in  the  peculiar  mould  which  its  previous  development  has 
provided.  These  tendencies  apply  to  religion  as  well  as  to 
other  social  processes.  Each  religious  type  gradually  con- 
structs from  the  raw  material  furnished  by  the  physical  and 
social  environment  a  mechanism  capable  of  utilizing  this 
environment  in  specific  ways.  But  the  universe  offers  in- 
definite possibilities  to  an  evolving  biological  form.  None 
can  so  develop  as  to  embrace  all  these  possibilities.  Some  are 
inevitably  utilized  to  the  neglect  of  others.  In  the  same  way 
the  value-consciousness  may  be  conceived  as  developing  with 

I  an  accelerated  momentum  along  diverse  lines  on  account  of 
the  indefinite  possibilities  for  valuation  afforded  by  man's 
universe.  All  specific  valuations  must  appear  more  or  less  one- 
sided to  an  individual  looking  at  them  from  a  point  of  view 
outside  the  process  which  has  produced  them,  and  yet  they 
may  be  legitimate  constructs,  since  no  valuation  can  include 
the  entire  order  of  existence.  But,  just  as  some  animal  forms 
/have  constructed  types  of  life  which  prove  in  various  ways 

^  to  be  superior  to  other  forms  which  have  had  relatively  the 
same  natural  environment,  so  it  is  possible  that  the  evolution  of 
values  has  been  more  successful  in  some  directions  than  in 
others.  The  Todas,  with  their '  dairy  religion, '  the  Australians, 
with  their  peculiar  religio-magical  rites,  the  Melanesians,  with 
their  customs  largely  adjusted  so  that  they  may  obtain  and 
utilize  the  mysterious  force,  mana^ — all  afford  interesting  illus- 
tration of  the  momentum  which  particular  types  of  valuation 
may  acquire  in  one  or  another  direction.  A  striking  case  is 
presented  by  some  of  the  North  American  Indians  whose 
burial  ceremonies  required  the  destruction  of  a  certain  amount 
of  personal  property.  These  customs  gradually  increased  to 
such  an  extent  that  the  tribes  in  question  were  rapidly  ap- 
proaching a  condition  of  abject  poverty  when  the  *  whites' 
interposed   and  checked  the  development  of  the  ruinous 


y 


220  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

/practices,  which  seem  to  have  gotten  entirely  beyond  the 
control  of  the  Indians.^  All  these  cases  represent  diverse 
methods  of  reacting  to  and  of  expressing  certain  appreciations 
of  worth  which,  when  once  differentiated,  acquire  a  force  of 
their  own  which  carries  each  forward  almost  irresistibly 
in  its  own  peculiar  direction.  In  this  same  way  a  particular 
type  of  religious  consciousness  was  gradually  developed  by  the 
later  Hebrews,  of  which  certain  aspects  have  continued  to 
unfold  in  connection  with  Christianity.  In  this  way  arises  a 
sort  of  continuum  of  religious  valuations  and  concepts  which 
has  some|]of  the  attributes  of  an  independent  existence  capable, 
from  [one  generation  to  another,  of  casting  men's  ideas  into  a 
particular  mould  and  of  organizing  within  them  fairly  constant 
types  of  valuational  attitudes. 

Thus  there  are  diverse  strains  of  religious  as  well  as  of  gen- 
eral social  evolution.  Each  of  them  has  its  peculiar  merit  (or 
demerit,  some  might  say),  because  each  is  the  expression  of  a 
particular  outlook  upon  life,  and  no  such  single  outlook  can, 
as  we  have  already  said,  be  entirely  inclusive  of  all  the  pos- 
sibilities afforded  by  the  universe.  Some  of  these  strains  of 
religious  development  seem  to  have  more  momentum,  and 
to  be  more  inclusive  than  others,  but  in  every  case  there  is  the 
particular  *  direction  of  movement '  which  each  has  acquired 
and  which  is  always  more  or  less  organic  with  the  social  life  of 
the  people  concerned. 

There  are  two  points  regarding  the  evolution  of  such  a 
religious  strain  which  should  be  kept  in  mind.  The  first, 
the  method  of  its  transmission  from  one  generation  to  an- 
other; the  second,  the  means  of  its  further  elaboration,  or 
development.  To  the  method  of  transmission  we  have  al- 
ready made  reference.^    It  is  in  a  large  measure  dependent 

^  I  regret  that  I  am  at  present  unable  to  give  the  exact  authority  for  this  illus- 
tration. '  Chap.  II,  p.  37,  supra. 


V 


FURTHER   CONSIDERATIONS  221 

upon  the  maintenance  of  certain  objective  conditions  which 
stimulate  in  each  new  generation  particular  types  of  organized 
activity,  and  thus  serve  to  keep  alive  fairly  constant  types  of 
mental  states.  To  be  sure,  in  connection  with  this  handing 
down  of  certain  customs  there  is  also  a  more  or  less  definite 
transmission  of  a  conceptual  framework  which  depends  for  its 
meaning,  in  part,  upon  the  underpinning  of  custom  and  cere- 
monial. The  appearance  of  any  given  variety  of  the  religious 
attitude  in  the  individuals  of  succeeding  generations  is,  then, 
aoeomplished  largely  by  the  method  of  social  suggestion  in  all 

^e  manifold  ways  in  which  that  may  work. 

As  regards  the  means  of  elaboration,  some  account  must 
always  be  taken  of  the  development  of  the  individual  with  a 
relatively  separate  and  valid  personality  of  his  own.  It  has 
been  shown  that  the  primitive  religious  attitude  is  more  or  less 
objective,  due  to  the  fact  that  society,  in  its  earlier  stages,  is 
organized  so  exclusively  with  reference  to  acute  objective 
interests.  Here  the  individual  is  not  clearly  differentiated 
from  the  group.  ^    As  a  separate  personality  he  has  no  validity ; 

/'  his  religious  interests,  feelings,  and  concepts  he  shares  with  the 
rest  of  his  tribe ;  purely  personal  desires  and  appreciations  of 
worthfulness  he  can  scarcely  have,  or,  if  he  does  have  them, 
they  are  unstable  and  transient  because  they  can  find  no  place 
in  the  organized  religion  of  his  social  milieu.  As  this  subject 
comes  up  later  in  another  connection,^  we  do  not  wish  to  go 
into  details  here.  It  is  sufficient  to  say  that  with  the  develop- 
ment of  the  individual  there  is  a  corresponding  development, 
both  in  intension  and  extension,  of  the  religious  attitude. 
Wherever  the  person  acquires  a  status  as  an  individual,  in 
addition  to  his  overt  social  relationships,  it  is,  of  course,  in- 
evitable that  his  various  religious  concepts  and  valuations, 
which  before  had  significance  only  for  group  activity,  will 

*  Cf.  supra,  pp.  66  f .  '  Infra,  pp.  330-333- 


2  22  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

gain  many  new  meanings.  Out  of  the  heightened  sense  of  indi- 
y/  viduaHty  will  come  new  needs  and  new  appreciations  of  worth. 
The  relationship  to  the  gods  will  become  more  and  more 
personal.  In  countless  ways  his  religious  attitude  will  differ- 
entiate to  correspond  with  his  larger  and  more  complex  per- 
sonality. The  type  of  religion  which  thus  evolves  will  not  be 
radically  different  from  the  earlier  group  religion.  It  will 
be  simply  a  highly  specialized  form  of  it  in  which  the  indi- 
vidual as  such  may  find  satisfaction  for  personal  needs  as  he 
finds  further  opportunity  for  the  exercise  of  his  personality 
in  the  objective  social  life.  The  development  of  individuality 
enables  the  concepts  and  values  built  up  so  slowly  and  pain- 
fully in  primitive  society  to  unfold  with  more  plasticity  and 
with  a  certain  independence  of  objective  conditions. 

The  considerations  we  have  above  set  forth  are,  we  believe, 
fundamental  to  the  proper  understanding  of  the  evolution  of 
religion. 


CHAPTER  IX 

ORIGIN   AND   DEVELOPMENT   OF   CONCEPTS   OF  DIVINE 
PERSONAGES 


We  here  propose  to  give  a  schematic  account  of  the  possible 
origin  and  development  of  the  deistic  *  concepts '  *  of  religion. 
In  this  connection  we  shall  also  consider  the  various  beliefs  in 
spiritual  beings,  in  so  far  as  they  seem  to  play  a  part  in  the 
religious  consciousness.  The  literature  which  deals  with  this 
subject  is  already  so  overwhelming  and  so  intricate  that  it 
seems  almost  gratuitous  to  attempt  to  add  anything  worth 
while  to  it,  at  least  within  the  limits  of  a  brief  essay.  There 
are,  however,  certain  facts,  perhaps  in  themselves  already  well 
known,  that  may  be  brought  together  in  such  a  way  as  to 
give  something  of  a  new  perspective  to  a  problem  which 
appears  hopelessly  complicated  and  illusive. 

We  wish,  above  all,  to  emphasize  certain  relationships  be- 
tween a  people  and  its  deities;  to  show,  not  merely  how 
man's  economic  and  social  interests,  together  with  the  ac- 
tivities growing  out  of  them,  may  be  correlated  with  much, 
if  not  all,  the  varied  material  belonging  to  this  field,  but 
also  to  indicate  how  intimate  and  fundamental  these  economic 
and  social  facts  are  in  the  origin  and  development  of  deistic 
ideas. 

It  is,  of  course,  generally  recognized  that  deities  of  all 

*  The  term  'concept'  is  used  advisedly  for  want  of  a  better  word.  It  must 
not,  therefore,  be  construed  too  literally.  So  in  many  other  places  in  this 
chapter. 

223 


224  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

types  are  closely  related  to  the  cultural  level  of  their  human 
adherents,  or,  as  is  sometimes  said,  that  they  are  the  direct 
reflection  of  the  people's  social  and  political  ideals.'  In  the 
inquiry  here  proposed,  however,  it  will  be  shown  that  this 
relationship  is  more  than  a  mere  reflection,  that  the  idea  of  a 
god  with  all  the  conscious  attitudes  which  may  attend  it  is 
but  part  and  parcel  of  this  larger  social  background,  an 
almost  inevitable,  or  at  least  legitimate,  product  of  that  back- 
ground. In  general  terms,  the  proposition  is  that  if  people 
do  certain  things  in  certain  ways,  quite  definite  types  of  con- 
scious attitudes  may,  on  the  whole,  be  expected,  attitudes 
representing,  as  it  were,  the  elaboration,  on  the  conscious  side, 
of  these  overt  forms  of  behavior. 

In  the  preceding  chapters  it  has  been  pointed  out  that  the 
religious  consciousness  is  of  the  valuational  type,  and  that  it 
has,  at  least  in  part,  been  built  up  through  the  various  adjust- 
ments which  men  have  been  led  to  make  in  dealing  with  their 
physical  and  social  environment.  The  considerations  in  favor 
of  this  theory  have  been  somewhat  as  follows :  One's  concep- 
tion of  the  value  of  a  thing  is  altogether  dependent  upon  the 
extent  to  which  he  has  identified  himself  with  it,  worked  with 
it,  and  met  various  problems  arising  out  of  this  active  associa- 
tion. It  has  been  shown,  further,  that  religious  values  are  so 
intimately  associated  with  social  structure  and  activity  that 
they  may  fairly  be  regarded  as  owing  their  distinctive  features 
to  social  influences  of  one  sort  or  another.  The  best  evidence 
that  the  valuational  attitudes  of  religion  are  but  specializations 
from  a  broad  matrix  of  social  interests  is  to  be  found  in  the 
fact  that  religious  ceremonials  of  all  sorts  seem,  fundamentally, 
to  be  merely  forms  of  economic  activity,  or  other  social  re- 
actions of  various  sorts,  playful  and  serious.  Such  cere- 
monials were  evidently  not  devised  to  give  expression  to  a 

*  y«fe  G.  A.  Barton,  Semitic  Origins,  p.  82,  et  seq. 


ORIGIN  AND   DEVELOPMENT  OF   DEITIES 


225 


preexisting  religious  sense,  but  were  rather  the  basis  upon 
which  that  sense  developed,  and  this  underpinning  of  reactions, 
let  it  be  noted,  was  such  as  appeared  quite  naturally  in  the 
course  of  the  life-process. 

Just  as  our  ordinary  concepts,  our  ideational  constructions 
of  all  sorts,  go  back  finally  to  our  active  attitude  toward  the 
world,  and  are  to  be  viewed  as  specializations  of  this  attitude, 
so  do  all  the  ^  concepts '  and  values  of  the  religious  consciousness 
have  a  natural  history.  The  scientific  examination  of  these 
religious  'concepts'  cannot  start  from  the  hypothesis  that 
they  have,  in  some  undefined  way,  sprung  up  outside  the  pale 
of  the  life-process,  merely  receiving  a  coloring  from  it  or  be- 
ing modelled  more  or  less  upon  the  analogy  of  some  form  of 
institutional  life.  We  must  see  in  these  *  concepts '  rather  the 
explicit  outcome  of  antecedent  conditions,  phenomena  or- 
ganically related  to  other  manifestations  of  social  life.  This 
natural  history  of  religion  has,  from  many  points  of  view,  a 
general  scientific  interest  because,  notwithstanding  the  great 
and  almost  unresolvable  complexity  of  primitive  religion,  the 
material  with  which  one  here  has  to  deal  retains  in  a  peculiar 
way  the  coloring  of  its  ultimate  social  and  economic  relation- 
ships. Much  light  is  thus  thrown  upon  the  general  problems 
of  the  development  of  human  intelligence  and  the  method  of 
social  dififerentiation. 

Our  general  thesis  is,  then,  that  social  bodies  may  quite 
naturally  differentiate  deities  of  various  types ;  or,  negatively, 
that  deities  are  not  relatively  independent  affairs  merely 
ciolored  by,  or  seen  through,  social  customs  and  social  ideals. 
An  each  deity  we  may  find  some  expression  of  the  value-sense 
-^  of  a  people  rather  than  an  indication  of  a  more  or  less  imper- 
fect consciousness  of  some  supreme  being  such  as  the  higher 
forms  of  monotheism  present.  Since  the  gods  of  a  people  are 
thus  explicitly  related  to  its  social  life,  it  follows  that  the 
Q 


226  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

deistic  conceptions  of  different  times  and  races  are,  in  the 
main,  quite  discrete  and  unrelated  to  each  other  except  in  the 
fact  that  they  are  all  varying  modes  of  social  reaction  and 
social  determination.  The  only  unity  that  can  be  given  the 
various  concepts  of  different  primitive  religions  is  that  of 
their  common  relation  to  social  backgrounds  of  some  sort.^ 

But,  although  we  may  not,  at  least  from  a  scientific  point 
of  view,  trace  a  gradual  unfolding  of  some  innate  concept  of  a 
divine  or  ethical  ruler  of  the  universe,  we  may  roughly  group 
different  points  of  view  with  reference  to  their  ideal  relation  to 
some  of  the  types  of  ethical  monotheism.  We  may  find  in 
various  primitive  ideas,  not  necessary  stages  toward  the 
development  of  the  so-called  higher  deistic  conceptions,  but 
rather  more  or  less  complicated  results  of  different  types  of 
social  and  economic  interaction,  which,  to  say  the  least, 
throw  some  light  upon  the  influences  operative  in  the  evolu- 
tion of  the  higher  conceptions,  and  help  us  to  see  that  these 
purer  ideas  really  have  had  a  natural  history,  even  though 
it  may  not  be  possible  to  trace  it  out  in  all  its  details. 

II 

The  main  problem  that  confronts  us  is  that  of  discovering 
why  the  'concepts'  of  value,  to  which  we  have  referred  above, 
should  ever  have  tended  to  find  expression  in  terms  of  superior 
personalities. 

It  will  be  convenient  to  open  the  question  by  an  examina- 
tion of  the  difference  that  is  sometimes  drawn  between  religion 
and  magic,  namely,  that  they  differ  in  the  main  on  the  question 
of  deities.  Magic,  it  is  said,  stands  for  a  mechanical  concep- 
tion of  the  universe,  and,  when  it  postulates  spirit  agencies 
it  regards  them  as  objects  for  manipulation  and  coercion 

^  Vide  pp.  208,  213,  supra. 


ORIGIN  AND   DEVELOPMENT  OF  DEITIES        227 

rather  than  as  superior  beings  to  be  worshipped.  Religion, 
^on  the  other  hand,  is  usually  said  to  be  distinguished  by  its 
view  of  the  world  as  governed  by  personal  forces,  which  are 
often  capricious,  and  whose  favor  is  to  be  won  by  some  sort  j 
of  bargaining,  flattery,  adulation,  or  worship.  That  there 
is  an  important  point  involved  in  the  above  distinction  is 
not  to  be  denied,  but  it  demands  close  examination,  for,  stated 
in  this  broad  way,  the  fundamental  difference  upon  which  it  is 
based  is  not  clearly  apparent. 

While  deities  are  usually  associated  with  religion,  they  are 
only  one  of  the  means  through  which  the  religious  conscious- 
ness may  find  expression,  and  it  is  to  that  attitude  itself 
one  must  turn  if  one  is  to  gain  a  really  adequate  notion  of 
the  difference  between  the  two.  This  religious  attitude  is, 
as  we  have  pointed  out,  one  in  which  appreciative  and  valua- 
tional  elements  predominate,  particularly  such  as  are  deter- 
mined by  social  intercourse  and  by  a  social  atmosphere  gener- 
ally. If  religion  is  the  distinctive  product  of  such  conditions, 
it  is  not  strange  that  the  conceptions  of  worth,  the  valuational 
attitudes  thus  socially  determined,  should  be  associated  in 
some  way  with  persons.  In  other  words,  social  values  could 
scarcely  be  perpetuated  except  in  some  sort  of  social  terms. 
This  is  a  general  statement  of  the  ground  upon  which  we  shall 
try  to  account  for  the  appearance  and  the  development  of 
relatively  idealized  personages  in  many  religions. 

The  theory  of  Frazer  ^  that  gods  were  invented  or  resorted 
to  when  magical  expedients  were  found,  in  the  course  of  the 
ages,  to  be  futile,  is  to  be  criticised  on  the  ground  that  the 
gods  do  not  represent  expedients,  alternate  with  magic,  for 
dealing  with  the  universe.  The  gods  were  hardly  resorted  to 
because  magic  had  failed,  for  in  the  minds  of  the  natural 

*  Vide  The  Golden  Bough,  2d  edition,  Vol.  I,  p.  129,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  458, 
et  al. 


228  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

peoples  of  to-day  magic  is  as  much  of  a  success  as  it  ever  was. 
The  gods  are  rather  representative  of  the  fact  that  certain 
values  tend  to  be  conceived  in  social  terms,  and  man's  re- 
actions toward  the  universe  tend,  in  part  at  least,  to  be  exten- 
sions of  the  reactions  developed  through  social  intercourse. 
The  worship  of  the  gods  has,  then,  nothing  to  do  with  the 
supposed  failure  or  success  of  magical  practices  as  such,  but  is 
altogether  a  consequence  of  the  fact  that  religious  values  are 
primarily  social  in  origin  and  in  development.  The  position 
we  have  here  taken  differs  to  some  extent  from  that  ordinarily 
accepted.  Many  writers  have  shown  how  magical  practices 
and  theories  underlie  most  religions  and  are  interwoven  with 
many  of  the  most  highly  developed  types.  To  some  extent  the 
whole  matter  depends  upon  what  one  chooses  to  call  magic  and 
religion,  but  it  is  also  true  that  one's  definitions  in  any  field 
may  clarify  or  obscure  important  phases  of  the  subject-matter 
under  consideration.  It  seems  to  the  present  writer  that  the 
great  difficulty  with  the  prevalent  point  of  view  is  that  it  sepa- 
rates so  radically  two  related  phases  of  primitive  thought  and 
practice.  On  the  one  side  is  the  savage's  general  mechanical 
conception  of  the  world,  and  on  the  other  is  his  idea  of  it  as 
pervaded  by  spirits  or  a  spirit  which  is  to  be  worshipped  in 
some  way  or  other.  In  actual  life  we  find  these  *  concepts' 
interacting  in  most  unexpected  ways.  That  there  is  an  im- 
portant and  genuine  relationship  present  may,  we  believe,  be 
demonstrated,  and  it  will,  therefore,  add  clarity  to  the  exposi- 
tion to  reserve  the  term  *  magic '  for  a  particular  type  of 
attitude  toward  the  world,  rather  than  to  apply  it  indiscrim- 
inately to  all  practices  in  which  the  world  is  conceived  as 
pervaded  by  forces  which  may  in  various  ways  yield  to 
manipulation. 

Proceeding  with  our  inquiry,  then,  we  shall  try  at  the  outset 
to  take  a  somewhat  plastic  point  of  view,  seeking  simply  to 


ORIGIN  AND   DEVELOPMENT  OF   DEITIES        229 

note  the  probable  method  by  which  the  valuational  attitudes 
of  a  group  have  often  come  to  be  associated  with  persons,  and, 
further,  the  way  in  which  the  interests  and  activities  of  such 
a  group  determine  not  only  the  fundamental  nature  of  these 
superior  persons  but  determine  as  well  the  various  attributes 
with  which  they  become  endowed.  At  one  end  of  the  process 
of  development  we  find  definite  gods ;  at  the  other,  various 
socialized  conceptions  that  appear  to  have  furnished  the  matrix 
from  which  the  gods  have  evolved.  Just  when  a  real  deity 
may  be  said  to  emerge  from  this  matrix  may  not  always  be 
easy  to  determine,  nor  will  it  be  of  great  consequence  to  be 
able  to  answer  such  a  question  definitely,  for  that  would 
necessitate  the  setting  up  of  more  or  less  arbitrary  standards. 
The  process  of  the  socialization  of  values  is  really  the  funda- 
mental problem,  and  when  that  is  solved,  it  will  clear  up  many 
questions  which  may  be  raised  regarding  the  deities  them- 
selves. 

It  is  important  to  bear  in  mind  that  the  values  with  which 
we  are  concerned  may  arise  out  of  any  situation  which  engages 
the  attention  of  the  social  group.  Many  theories  regarding 
primitive  deities  are  inadequate  because  they  overemphasize 
some  one  interest,  and  thereby  do  not  give  sufficient  credit 
to  the  r61e  of  the  whole  social  body  in  the  development  of  such 
ideas.  Such  theories  give  an  adequate  account  neither  of  the 
interest  upon  which  everything  is  based,  nor  of  the  diversity 
of  characteristics  which  the  concept  of  a  deity  inevitably 
acquires.  Thus,  some  well-known  writers  have  held  that  the 
worship  of  the  gods  has  all  been  developed  from  the  primitive 
man*s  respect  and  fear  of  the  dead,  especially  of  his  ancestors. 
Others  have  maintained  that  man  has  a  *  general  tendency' 
to  conceive  all  the  forces  of  nature  in  terms  of  spiritual  agencies, 
and  that  these  spirits  are  in  greater  or  less  degree  his  deities, 
or,  at  least,  that  his  deities  are  direct  developments  of  his 


230  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

animism.  Others  have  held  there  is  some  sort  of  an  original 
instinct  to  revere  things  in  general,  and  that  this  instinct  has, 
in  various  ways,  become  particularized  so  that,  beginning  with 
a  general  or  vague  worship  of  all  inanimate  objects,  it  has  pro- 
gressed through  certain  fairly  definite  types  of  particularization, 
e.g.  worship  of  stones,  snakes,  trees,  the  generative  principle, 
great  natural  forces,  up  to  the  ethical  conceptions  of  highly 
developed  religions. 

These  theories  explain  little  that  is  important,  and  the  clas- 
sifications offered  are  usually  based  upon  altogether  super- 
ficial characteristics,  such  at  least  as  leave  out  of  account 
the  meaning  or  attitude  expressed,  and  certainly  give  no  place 
for  the  social  factor,  whether  it  be  in  the  origin  of  the  god  or 
in  the  development  of  his  attributes.  There  is  no  question,  of 
course,  but  that  such  objects  as  those  mentioned  above  have 
served  in  many  religions  as  deities  or  as  the  symbols  of  deities, 
but  none  of  those  who  find  religion  beginning  in  the  worship 
of  these  things  seem  to  have  thought  of  showing  why  man 
should  have  been  concerned  in  the  first  place  to  worship 
something. 

To  deal  with  this  problem  from  the  psychological  point 
of  view  requires  that  we  explain,  in  the  first  place,  why  certain 
objects,  phenomena,  or  supposed  spirits  have  attracted  and 
held  the  attention  of  men.  The  answer,  of  course,  is  that 
they  have  been,  primarily,  such  things  as  have  engaged  his 
activities  in  the  elementary  food,  protective,  and  reproductive 
processes ;  for  example,  fruitful  plants  and  trees,  wild  animals, 
storms,  rivers,  mountains,  and  so  forth,  especially  such  objects 
as  have  concerned  men  in  groups.  Reference  has  already 
been  made  to  the  large  extent  to  which  animals  have  excited 
primitive  man's  attention.  The  erratic  behavior  of  the  hawk, 
rushing  down  from  the  sky,  screaming  and  circling  about 
and  before  their  boats,  causes  some  of  the  tribes  of  Borneo  to 


ORIGIN  AND   DEVELOPMENT  OF  DEITIES       231 

regard  it  with  respect  and  to  consult  it  for  omens.*  The  same 
authors  tell  us  that  one  native  thinks  a  certain  python  has 
helped  him,  so  that  neither  he  nor  his  children  kill  that  animal. 
Another  famil)'  is  protected  by  the  porcupine  because  one  ran 
out  of  a  hole  when  their  house  was  building,  and  some  one 
dreamed  of  the  incident  that  night.  None  of  the  family  have 
died  in  the  seven  years  since,  nor  have  they  killed  any  porcu- 
pines, except  upon  one  occasion  when  one  was  sacrificed  and 
prayed  to.  Another  household  was  protected  by  a  gibbon, 
which  was  therefore  never  killed  by  this  family. 

The  Borneans  also  recognize  other  omen  birds,  which  are 
often  birds  with  strange  or  peculiar  cries,  such  as  the  wood- 
pecker and  hornbill.  The  dog  is  never  killed,  neither  will 
they  kill  and  eat  deer  or  wild  cattle.  The  cries  of  deer  are 
to  them  warnings  of  danger.  A  sort  of  tiger  occurring  in 
Borneo  is  also  greatly  respected,  and  no  ordinary  man  dares 
touch  the  skin  of  one.  These  same  people  do  not  kill  lizards 
nor  snakes,  and  are  afraid  of  a  long-nosed  variety  of  monkey, 
being  unwilling  to  look  one  of  them  in  the  face  or  to  laugh  at 
him.  This  regard  for  animals,  of  course,  has  various  connec- 
tions with  their  other  beliefs.  Similar  illustrations  could  be 
given  from  practically  all  primitive  peoples.  As  we  do  not 
care  here  to  go  beyond  the  fact  that  various  animals  may 
easily  and  in  quite  explainable  ways  arouse  a  sort  of  spontaneous 
attention  in  people,  these  cases  may  suffice.  As  with  animals, 
so  with  inanimate  objects  and  various  forms  of  vegetation. 
We  offer  a  few  illustrations,  simply.  Thus,  the  date  palm 
was  an  object  of  great  interest  to  some  of  the  primitive  Se- 
mitic peoples,^  and  among  the  tribes  of  the  Niger  delta  there 
is  much  respect  for  certain  trees  and  shrubs,  some  of  which 

^  Hose  and  MacDougall,  "Men  and  animals  in  Sarawak,"  Journal  of 
Anthropological  Institute,  Vol.  XXXI. 
^  Vide  Barton,  Semitic  Origins. 


232  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

axe  worshipped.  In  one  section  a  creeper  "which  grows  in 
the  bush  and  is  considered  by  the  natives  to  bear  a  striking 
resemblance  to  the  python,  the  living  emblem  of  their  national 
god,  is  worshipped  by  the  natives,  and  a  severe  punishment 
is  inflicted  on  any  one  who  cuts  it  down  and  burns  it.  .  .  . 
So,  too,  the  African  oak  is  considered  sacred,  and  as  such  is 
used  for  building  purposes  only. "  The  blood-plum,  a  com- 
mon tree,  is  believed  to  have  certain  peculiar  powers  and  is 
generally  worshipped.  The  Yoruba  believe  that  a  slender, 
prickly  plant,  which  grows  in  the  bush,  escapes  being  burnt 
in  forest  fires  because  of  its  indwelling  spirit.  A  large  tree, 
called  the  '  Father  of  trees, '  is  regarded  with  much  reverence, 
attention  being  attracted  to  it  especially  because  "it  never 
grows  in  a  grove,  but  always  in  a  position  that]  commands  a 
stream. "  From  the  hard  wood  of  another  tree  called  ayan^ 
the  club  of  the  god  of  thunder  is  made.  "They  have  a 
proverb  to  the  effect  that '  Ayan  resists  an  axe.' "  ^ 

*  Leonard,  The  Lower  Niger  and  its  Tribes,  pp.  301-303.  With  reference  to 
these  observations  of  Major  Leonard's  it  should  be  noted  that  he  maintains 
very  emphatically  that  these  Niger  tribes  revere  these  things  because  they 
suppose  them  to  be  the  dwelling-places  of  ancestral  spirits,  the  whole  cult  being 
of  this  type.  Great  weight  should  be  given  to  his  interpretation  because  of  his 
long  and  intimate  acquaintance  with  the  natives,  but  it  is  significant  to  note  that 
Captain  Ellis  is  equally  emphatic  in  asserting  that  the  Yoruba,  closely  related 
to  the  tribes  observed  by  Leonard,  are  not  ancestor-worshippers.  Whatever 
the  truth  of  the  matter  may  be,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  it  is  some  physical 
peculiarity  of  tree,  shrub,  or  animal,  a  peculiarity  of  some  practical  significance, 
possibly,  which  has  thrust  it  upon  their  attention  and  thus  made  it  an  appro- 
priate dwelling  for  the  ancestral  spirit.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  there  is  much  in 
Leonard's  account  to  lead  one  to  suspect  that  there  is  here  at  least  an  under- 
pinning of  spiritistic  belief  that  is  not  strictly  ancestral.  It  seems  entirely 
possible  that  the  idea  of  ancestral  spirits  might  become  so  absorbing  that  all 
spirit  beliefs  would  eventually  be  interpreted  according  to  the  ancestral  pattern. 
This  has  surely  occurred  in  such  a  case  as  this ;  viz.  the  belief  in  a  spirit  land  to 
which  the  spirits  of  the  plants  go  when  they  die.  Miss  Kingsley,  West  African 
Studies,  p.  131,  takes  the  same  view  as  does  Ellis ;  viz.  that  ancestor-worship  is 
not  the  basis  of  West  African  religion. 


ORIGIN   AND   DEVELOPMENT  OF   DEITIES        233 

Just  as  the  Niger  native  reveres  certain  plants,  so  he 
also  holds  in  great  reverence  reptiles,  particularly  crocodiles, 
iguanas,  and,  among  the  coast  tribes,  the  shark.  The  animals 
which  are  thus  respected  are  the  ones  which  are  the  most  in 
evidence,  and  which  impress  him  with  their  strength,  craft, 
or  subtlety.*  Here,  again,  Leonard  thinks  the  veneration  is 
due  to  the  fact  that  they  are  the  emblems  of  more  or  less  power- 
ful ancestral  spirits.  Though  this  be  now  the  case,  we  can 
scarcely  doubt  that  the  animal  itself  was,  to  start  with,  quite 
able  to  attract  the  attention  and  arouse  the  fear  of  the  native.^ 

Stones  in  the  alluvial  deposit  of  the  Niger  delta  are  quite 
rare.  In  one  place,  an  egg-shaped  slab  of  granite  is  the  only 
stone  known  to  the  natives,  and  they  highly  revere  it.  **How 
it,  the  only  stone  in  the  vicinity,  got  there,  or  where  it  came 
from,  is  a  blank  and  a  mystery  which  renders  it  all  the  more 
sacred. ''  ^ 

The  interest  of  the  primitive  man  in  natural  objects,  plants, 
and  animals  is  universal,  and  it  is  scarcely  necessary  to  mul- 
tiply illustrations.*  We  wish,  by  these  which  we  have  given 
and  which  are,  by  the  way,  quite  typical,  to  show  in  what 
natural  ways  various  things  may  become  objects  of  general 

*  Op.  cit.  p.  317. 

^  Some  of  the  tribes  of  Borneo,  whose  animal  beliefs  were  referred  to  above, 
also  tend  to  associate  ancestral  spirits  with  some  animals.  In  one  case  the  deer 
are  so  looked  upon,  probably  because  they  are  in  the  habit  of  frequenting  the 
grassy  clearings  made  by  the  people  about  their  places  of  burial.  Vide  Hose 
and  MacDougall,  op.  cit.  This  case  is  especially  worthy  of  note  because  it 
illustrates  how  easily  the  ancestor  may  come  to  be  associated  with  a  particular 
animal.  In  the  same  way  the  Kafirs  think  the  snakes  which  creep  about  their 
burial  places  are  the  spirits  of  their  forefathers.  Dudley  Kidd,  The  Essential 
Kafir,  p.  87. 

'  Leonard,  p.  306. 

*  Nassau,  Fetichism  in  West  Africa,  gives  many  excellent  illustrations.  All 
sorts  of  prominent  natural  objects  are  regarded  with  respect  and  fear.  Thus 
caves,  large  rocks,  large  or  hollow  trees,  dark  forests,  dangerous  rocks  in  rivers, 
the  natives  approach  or  pass  with  a  muttered  prayer. 


A 


234  DEVELOPMENT   OF   RELIGION 

interest  and  represent  actual  or  symbolic  values  to  the  mind 
of  the  savage.  In  some  of  the  instances  mentioned  there  is 
no  suggestion  of  a  deity ;  in  others  the  interest  seems  to  pass 
easily  into  respect  or  fear,  while  in  still  others  the  object  is 
believed  to  be  the  abode  of  a  spirit  which  not  only  commands 
respect,  but  also  is  approached  with  definite  ceremonials  of 
worship.  We  can  scarcely  doubt  that  it  is  possible  to  trace  a 
natural  transition  from  simple  objects  of  attention  to  objects 
of  real  religious  adoration. 

The  point  thus  far  is  that  the  objects  with  which  spirits 
and  ancestors  are  almost  universally  associated  are  in  many 
cases  originally  interesting,  and  furnish  the  first  foci  for  those 
valuational  attitudes  such  as  later  found  expression  in  terms  of 
some  person  or  spirit.  It  is  quite  possible  that,  as  the  notion 
of  spirit  agencies  developed,  the  value  of  these  material  objects 
or  animals  would  be  explained  as  due  to  an  indwelling  spirit 
or  ancestor,  as  seems  to  be  the  case  of  the  Niger  tribes,  or  to 
the  peculiar  way  in  which  the  object  was  in  touch  with  or  was 
the  vehicle  of  'the  mysterious  potency,'  as  among  various 
of  the  North  American  Indians. 

In  the  same  way  in  which  certain  things  become  objects 
of  fear  or  regard,  persons  would  attract  attention  and  be  feared 
or  even  revered,  and  this  regard  would  be  carried  over  to 
their  ghosts  as  soon  as  the  notion  of  a  detachable  spirit  part 
was  developed,  and  finally,  as  Leonard  says,  just  as  the  sav- 
age trusts  some  men  and  fears  others,  so  he  trusts  and  fears 
spirits. 

Ill 

As  we  have  seen,  these  first  objects  of  interest,  whether 
inanimate  things,  plants,  animals,  or  persons,  are  in  most 
cases  such  as  lie  very  close  at  hand,  arouse  man's  curiosity,  and 
frequently  have  to  do  with  his  welfare  in  intimate  ways.     It 


ORIGIN  AND   DEVELOPMENT  OF   DEITIES        235 

should  be  noted  also  that  these  centres  of  interest  depend 
quite  definitely  upon  the  activities  and  economic  concerns  of 
social  groups  rather  than  upon  the  whim  of  the  individual.  It 
is  this  which  gives  the  interest  intensity  and  stability.  These 
facts  furnish  a  useful  background  from  which  to  examine  a 
certain  phase  of  the  conception  of  deities,  which  may  profitably 
,  ylbe  disposed  of  as  the  next  step  in  our  inquiry ;  namely,  the 
belief,  present  among  almost  all  ethnic  peoples,  in  far-off  and 
quite  unreal  divinities,  along  with  others  which  seem  quite 
near  at  hand,  concrete,  vital,  and  closely  related  to  present 
activities  and  interests.  These  far-off  gods  are  often  so  lack- 
ing in  qualities  of  any  sort  that  investigators  have  held  that 
they  are  really  remnants  of  higher  conceptions  of  the  divine, 
contrasting  strangely  with  the  sordid  objects  of  faith  pre- 
vailing in  the  present.  Thus  Nassau  reports  that  the  negroes 
of  the  West  Coast  have  the  idea  of  an  all-father,  a  sort  of 
culture-hero  who  is  so  remote  that  he  takes  no  interest  in  their 
present  doings  and  is  consequently  given  no  worship.^  The 
Kafirs  are  said  to  have  a  hazy  belief  in  a  far-off  god,  Umu- 
lunkulu,  a  creator,  but  the  concept  is  not  sharply  distinguished 
from  that  of  great-great-grandfather.  Their  religious  devo- 
tions are  much  more  readily  excited  by  their  immediate  an- 
cestors and  by  the  snakes  which  creep  about  their  graves. 
Their  Amatongo  are  the  spirits  of  their  immediate  ancestors, 
and  these  they  praise  and  attempt  to  please  by  killing  oxen 
for  them.^  Among  the  Yoruba  people  and  others  adjoining 
them  there  are  also  beliefs  in  distant  gods,  as  of  the  sky,  who 
are  seldom  worshipped,  while  local  deities,  natural  objects, 
or  phenomena  which  excite  fear  or  attention,  are  highly 
respected.^    The  Niger  tribes  manifest  a  reverence  for  the 

*  Fetichism  in  West  Africa,  pp.  36  flF. 

*  Dudley  Kidd,  The  Essential  Kafir. 

*  Ellis,  The  Tshi-,  Ewe-,  and  Yoruba-speaking  Peoples, 


27,6  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

phenomena  of  nature,  regarding,  however,  the  most  distant 
ones,  as  the  sky,  sun,  moon,  and  stars,  with  the  least  interest.* 
Illustrations  of  this  sort  might  be  multiplied  indefinitely, 
even  in  some  of  the  higher  religions.  Thus  it  is  said  that  the 
Hindu's  belief  in  Brahma  as  creator  is  analogous  to  his  belief 
in  the  existence  of  America.^ 

The  significant  point  in  all  these  cases  is  that  the  remote 
deity  stands  in  no  definite  relation  to  current  interests. 
Instead,  however,  of  regarding  it  as  a  remnant  of  a  higher 
belief,  we  should  hold  rather  that  it  is  a  stranded  deity,  the 
remnant  of  a  time  when  the  interests  of  the  group  were  other 
than  at  present.  The  remoteness  and  lack  of  definite  qualities 
is  not  to  be  taken  as  proving  the  superior  character  of  these 
gods.  It  is  easy  for  one  who  looks  for  remnants  of  a  higher 
belief  to  lead  his  informants  to  make  statements  which  he  can 
interpret  as  he  chooses.  The  negro,  knowing  of  nothing  in 
particular  to  say  about  the  superseded  gods,  by  his  very  lack 
of  definiteness  or  by  the  general  statements  into  which  he  is 
led,  when  pressed  to  say  something,  can  easily  be  taken  to 
have  in  these  vague  ideas  the  vestiges  of  a  belief  in  a  supreme 
being. 

What  seems  to  be  an  excellent  illustration  of  the  position 
here  taken  is  furnished  by  the  Todas.  These  peoples  have 
a  fairly  extensive  pantheon,  but  its  members  are  not  at  present 
objects  of  worship  in  any  important  degree.  The  Todas  give 
attention  to  them  only  in  so  far  as  they  are  able  to  connect  them 
with  their  most  important  and  economic  and  social  interest, 
their  buffaloes.  All  the  myths  about  their  gods  are  otherwise 
hazy,  and  their  names  persist  in  a  meaningless  way  in  the 
Todas'  prayers.  As  we  have  stated  already,  all  the  keen 
religious  interests  of  these  people  are  absorbed  in  the  various 

*  Leonard,  op.  cit.,  p.  337. 

'  E.  W.  Hopkins,  Journal  of  American  Oriental  Society ^  Vol.  25. 


ORIGIN  AND  DEVELOPMENT  OF   DEITIES        237 

ceremonies  of  the  dairy.*  It  is  certainly  significant  that  these 
deities  are  to-day  remembered  chiefly  for  what  they  are  sup- 
posed once  to  have  done  in  connection  with  the  dairies, 
although  there  are  fragments  extant  of  an  unmistakably  dif- 
ferent belief,  which  doubtless  points  to  a  time  when  the  inter- 
ests and  activities  were  other  than  they  are  to-day.  Some  of 
their  gods  are  possibly  heroes,  men  who,  formerly,  actually 
took  part  in  the  economic  activities  of  the  tribe,  while  others 
clearly  belong  to  a  different  era,  and  their  legends  "are  gradu- 
ally becoming  vaguer  in  the  progress  toward  complete  oblivis- 
cence."  ^  We  find  among  these  people  "a  stage  of  religious 
belief  in  which  the  gods,  once  believed  to  be  real,  living  among 
men  and  intervening  in  their  affairs,  have  become  shadowy 
beings,  apparently  less  real,  and  intervening  in  the  affairs  of 
men  in  a  mysterious  manner  and  chiefly  in  the  case  of  infrac- 
tion of  laws  which  they  are  still  believed  to  have  given."  ^ 

Some  of  these  apparently  colorless  and  far-off  gods  may,  to 
be  sure,  be  due  in  part  to  the  play  of  fancy,  which  might  easily 
construct  purely  play-deities  upon  the  analogy  of  the  more  im- 
mediately interesting  ones.  While  this  may  in  some  measure 
explain  certain  cases,  we  feel  sure  that  the  general  hypothesis 
offered  above  accounts  for  by  far  the  most  of  them. 

Wherever  deities  of  much  definiteness  and  color  are  found, 
they  are  always  associated  with  various  acute  and  quite 
persistent  interests  of  their  adherents.  The  negroes  of  the 
Gold  and  the  Slave  coasts  have  beliefs  in  varying  degrees  in 
indwelling  spirits.  These,  as  we  have  seen,  are  connected 
with  such  definite  concerns  as  tall  trees,  rivers,  lakes,  portions 
of  the  sea  where  lives  are  known  to  have  been  lost,  disease,  and 
particularly  small-pox.     Among  agricultural  peoples  we  find 

^  Rivers,  The  Todas,  Chaps.  IX,  XIX. 
'  Ihid.f  p.  252. 
» Ibid.,  p.  452. 


238  DEVELOPMENT   OF   RELIGION 

deifications  of  fertility,  such  as  Ishtar  and  Adonis,  among 
Semitic  peoples,  and  Osiris,  in  the  case  of  the  Egyptians. 
Of  the  same  ilk  are  the  numerous  deifications  of  the  sun.  The 
deity  of  the  primitive  Semites  was  a  mother  goddess  associated 
with  the  date  palm.  On  the  other  hand,  warlike  races  have 
gods  of  war.  The  Head-hunters  of  Sarawak  not  only  have 
such  a  deity,  but  hold  in  veneration  the  captured  heads, 
regarding  them  as  receptacles  of  power  and  good  fortune. 
But  here,  again,  there  is  no  need  to  multiply  examples.  We 
wish  simply  to  illustrate  the  point  that  gods  which  hold  a 
prominent  place  in  the  minds  of  a  people  are  always  related 
to  some  aspect  of  their  social  interests  and  that,  when  these 
interests  change,  if  the  gods  are  too  fixed  to  change  also,  they 
readily  become  remote,  shadowy,  and  unreal,  and  are  known 
only  by  name  rather  than  through  a  ritual  of  any  kind. 

New  interests  furnish  the  basis  for  new  deities.  If  the  old 
gods  are  retained,  it  is  almost  always  through  their  becoming 
associated  in  some  way  with  the  new  concerns  of  life.  This 
fact  is  illustrated  in  a  curiously  complicated  way,  as  we  have 
seen,  by  the  Todas.  With  them,  new  deities  are  just  in  the 
process  of  appearing.  Milk  is  for  them  an  intrinsically  sacred 
fluid,  and  the  bells  have  become  objects  of  sacrifice,  apparently 
through  association  with  the  milk.  The  dairy  utensils  and 
the  dairy  itself  are  all,  likewise,  sacred  objects. 

IV 

Frequent  reference  has  been  made  to  the  diversity  of  the 
interests  of  the  primitive  man  which  furnish  the  basis  for  his 
religious  ideas.  The  development  of  these  interests,  together 
with  the  activities  with  which  they  are  necessarily  associ- 
ated, and  which,  in  part,  have  produced  them,  are  easily 
explainable,  as  we  have  seen.    Thus  far  we  have  desired  to 


ORIGIN  AND   DEVELOPMENT   OF   DEITIES        239   <- 

show  how  a  more  or  less  intense  mental  attitude  of  attention  or 
interest  may,  in  certain  situations,  be  quite  naturally  aroused. 
This  attitude  of  interested  attention  is,  in  most  cases,  as  we 
have  seen,  associated  in  the  mind  of  the  savage  with  various 
theories  of  impersonal  powers  or  of  spirits.  In  this  section 
we  wish  to  take  up  the  fact  of  this  association  and  determine, 
if  possible,  its  significance. 

In  a  preceding  chapter  ("The  Mysterious  Power")  it  was  xv- 
seen  that  the  concept  of  a  power  of  some  sort,  personal  or 
impersonal,  may  naturally  arise  from  a  situation  involving 
strained  attention  or  interest.  First  the  object  itself  is  re- 
garded with  interest,  then  gradually  the  notion  grows  that 
some  things,  such  as  dangerous  or  fleet-footed  animals,  swift 
rivers,  have  a  *  power '  which  requires  of  men  special  attention, 
circumspect  action.  There  seems  no  reason  why  this  vague 
notion  of  a  force,  or  potency,  should  not  be  gradually  extended 
as  a  sort  of  semiconscious '  concept '  to  interpret  all  phenomena 
and  things  which  arouse  attention,  and  that  it  should  account 
also  for  the  well-realized  values  of  the  things  of  concern  in 
daily  life.  The  man,  also,  whom  the  savage  fears,  is  in  the 
same  way  regarded  as  *  possessed '  of  some  madness  or  *  power.  '—* 
We  may,  with  Frazer,  call  such  a  person  a  man-god  ^  if  we 
wish,  or,  more  simply,  regard  him  as  merely  the  sort  of  a  case 
which  helps  to  generate  in  the  savage  mind  the  semiconscious 
theory  of  a  'power'  to  which  may  be  attributed  all  the  pe- 
culiarities of  his  environment. 

This  notion  that  there  is  a  '  power '  in  the  interesting  object 
is  further  strengthened  by  seeming  instances  of  the  trans- 
mission of  the  energy  from  one  person  or  thing  to  another. 
The  savage  is  familiar  with  cases  where  one  body  acts  upon 
another  with  striking  results.  "  Some  qualities  or  character- 
istics of  things  are,  in  a  sense,  transmissible.  Death  as 
*  The  Golden  Bough,  2d  ed.,  Vol.  I,  pp.  130  f. 


w       240  DEVELOPMENT   OF   RELIGION 

such  is  not  infectious,  but  small-pox  is.  The  touch  of  a  preg- 
nant woman  will  not  impart  her  fertility,  but  her  warm  hand 
will  impart  warmth.  But  there  is  probably  a  little  more  in  the 
matter  than  a  too  hasty  generalization.  There  is  the  con- 
ception of  a  quality  as  something  quasi-substantial."  * 
yr  N^  Association  of  one  thing  with  another  by  contiguity  may 
further  strengthen  the  belief  in  the  reality  of  a  'power'  in  na- 
ture, more  or  less  separable  from  particular  objects.  Thus, 
when  connections  out  of  the  ordinary  are  noted  and  are  followed 
by  striking  events,  the  primitive  mind  is  immediately  sus- 
—  picious  of  some  hidden  connection.  Rivers  reports  that  the 
family  of  the  Toda  from  whom  he  obtained  much  of  his  in- 
formation soon  suffered  a  number  of  misfortunes,  sickness, 
death,  and  fire,  coincidences  inevitably  impressive  to  the 
savage  mind. 
-f  "^  As  we  have  already  pointed  out,  the  so-called  universal 
animism  of  primitive  races  is  in  large  measure  this  feeling  that 
there  is  in  nature  a  vague  potency  of  some  sort  which  under- 
lies most  of  its  phenomena,  as  well  as  most  of  the  things  that 
men  themselves  accomplish.  The  fundamental  theory  of 
Shinto  ^  is  this  theory  of  the  universe  as  sentient,  beneficent, 
or  to  be  dreaded,  as  the  case  may  be.  The  theory  was  not  that 
of  spiritism,  but  simply  that  the  world  was  alive,  possessed  of 
power,  no  attempt  being  made  to  distinguish  any  spirit  part 
as  such.  Thus  the  adherent  of  Shinto  revered  buildings, 
provinces,  trees,  heaven  and  earth,  human  rulers,  birds,  beasts, 
plants,  seas,  mountains,  and  all  of  them  directly,  not  necessa- 
rily "some  spirit  part  of  them.  They  were  objects  which  in 
various  ways  attracted  his  attention,  deserved  to  be  dreaded  for 

*  L.  T.  Hobhouse,  Morals  in  Evolution,  Vol.  II,  p.  19.  He  also  refers  to  the 
ceremonial  of  the  scapegoat's  carrying  away  the  sins  of  the  penitent  into  the 
desert  as  a  remnant,  in  a  higher  religion,  of  this  primitive  beUef. 

'  Aston,  ShintOy  pp.  16,  26. 


ORIGIN  AND   DEVELOPMENT  OF   DEITIES         241 

the  powers  which  they  possessed.  Such,  Aston  tells  us,  were 
the  first  Shinto  deities.  They  were  real  objects  of  worship,  and 
real  religious  rites  were  developed  in  their  honor  without  any 
definite  personality  being  attributed  to  them.^  This  he  ex- 
plains on  the  ground  that  the  Japanese  have  such  a  feeble 
concept  of  personality. 

We  have  in  these  cases  and  in  those  cited  from  the  Todas 
what  may,  for  convenience,  be  called  an  early  stage  in  the  de- 
velopment of  the  deity  per  se;  that  is,  forms  of  worship  cluster- 
ing about  various  objects  of  interest,  probably  the  direct  out- 
growth of  the  practical  and  playful  adjustments  which  these 
objects  of  interest  originally  aroused.  The  object  of  interest  is 
felt  to  possess  a  potency  of  some  sort,  but  it  is  not  as  yet  asso- 
ciated with  or  conceived  in  terms  of  personality.  In  this  same 
category  we  should  class  the  widely  prevalent  ceremonies  with 
which  the  new  moon  is  greeted,  of  which  Frazer  has  col- 
lected many  instances,  and  which  he  explains  as  "  intended 
to  renew  and  invigorate,  by  means  of  sympathetic  magic,  the 
life  of  man."  ^  It  seems  to  us  much  simpler  to  think  of  these 
ceremonies  as  originating  in  pure,  spontaneous  joyousness 
or  sportiveness,  similar  to  that  described  by  Stow  as  appearing 
among  the  Bushmen  on  the  advent  of  the  new  moon.  As  the 
idea  of  a  'power'  developed,  these  sports  and  dances  would 
naturally  be  associated  with  the  moon  and  would  be  con- 
ceived as  due  to  some  invigorating  influence  of  its  mysterious 
crescence.  In  time,  the  serious  phase  of  the  matter  might  be- 
come more  prominent  and  the  sport  and  spontaneous  joyous- 

*  Aston,  op.  cit.,  p.  17.  (See  also  Griffis,  The  Religions  of  Japan,  New 
York,  1895.)  In  the  Kojiki,  the  oldest  of  the  Japanese  sacred  writings,  "A 
Kami  or  deity  is  anything  wonderful,  god  or  man,  rock,  stream,  or  snake, 
whatever  is  surprising  or  sensational."  There  was  no  sharp  dividing  line  be- 
tween men  and  gods.  The  Kami  were  distinguished  by  such  qualities  as 
strength,  brute  force,  not  moral  traits. 

'  Adonis^  Attis,  Osiris,  pp.  307  et  seq. 

R 


242  DEVELOPMENT  OF  RELIGION 

ness  would  then  be  interpreted  as  the  means  by  all  odds  most 
necessary  through  which  to  secure  to  man  the  peculiar 
*  strength'  of  the  moon.  These  rites  may  be  called  magical, 
but  to  the  present  writer  they  are  rudimentarily  religious, 
i.e.  social  rites  for  obtaining  *  power,'  with  no  very  definite 
conception  of  the  moon  as  a  personality. 

/ 


y^ 


s/ 


We  are  now  ready  to  take  up  the  question  of  how  the  element 
of  personality  is  added  to  the  conceptions  thus  far  discussed, 
forming  the  next,  and  possibly  the  most  important  step,  in  the 
developmelit  of  the  real  deity.  Many  intermediate  stages  may 
be  noted  between  the  merely  impersonal  conception  and  that 
of  the  full-fledged  deity.  In  general,  the  most  important  of 
them  all  is  that  in  which  the  '  power '  is  associated  with  living 
beings.  It  would  be  natural  to  suppose  that  as  soon  as  man 
conceived  of  an  active  force  present  in  his  world  he  would 
tend  to  associate  persons  and  animals  with  it  in  an  especial 
manner.  Many  of  the  monsters  of  Eskimo  mythology  seem 
to  have  been  founded  upon  the  experiences  of  those  people 
with  unfamiliar  persons,  either  Indians  or  men  of  their 
own  who  have  been  lost,  banished,  or  run  away  from  the 
tribe.  These,  since  they  are  seldom  seen,  and  since  they 
act  strangely  when  seen,  gradually  acquire  all  sorts  of  mys- 
terious and  dreadful  powers.^  As  has  already  been  pointed 
out,  primitive  peoples  attribute  feats  of  all  sorts,  whether 
in  men  or  animals,  to  the  help  of  this  *  power.'  Animals 
which  are  swift  or  cunning  or  which  escape  their  enemies 
in  some  other  striking  way,  as  in  the  case  of  the  tortoise, 
would  at  once  be  said  to  possess  it.  These  beliefs  are 
common  enough  to-day,  as  we  have  seen.    We  have  shown 

*Nansen,  Eskimo  Life. 


ORIGIN  AND   DEVELOPMENT  OF   DEITIES        243 

/now  the  Melanesians  associate  their  notion  of  this  intan-  >^  ^ 
I  gible  force  with  persons  who  have  given  evidence  of  ex- 
L  Jraordinary  abiHty  in  some  direction  or  other.  These  peo- 
ple are  particularly  interesting  because  they  represent  such 
an  elementary  phase  of  the  matter  here  considered.  They 
do  not  go  so  far  as  to  identify  the  person  with  the  force,  or 
to  make  it  the  expression  of  his  personality.  Thus,  although 
certain  persons  have  particular  control  over  it,  they  are  not 
regarded  as  deities.  So  also,  when  they  are  dead,  their  spirits 
are  revered  because  of  their  fnrtn itni^^  rnn troj_nf^ th  is  mfmn/^  j 
or  'power,'  and  various  ceremonies  are  performed  at  their  I 
graves,  not  as  forms  of  worship,  but  to  induce  them  to  con- 
tinue to  use  their  power  favorably.  Those  spirits  which 
seem  disinclined  to  respond  are  promptly  discarded  and  soon 
forgotten.  The  attention  of  the  Melanesians  is  clearly  occu- 
pied with  the  '  power '  idea,  but  with  it  all  they  have  come 
to  have  a  definite  regard  for  some  persons,  and  have  developed 
ceremonials  which  are  suggestive  of  those  of  the  true  reli- 
gious type,  i.e»  of  those  directed  to  personal  deities.^ 

A  most  interesting  illustration  of  how  a  person  may  come  to 
be  conceived  as  the  possessor  of  a  potency  of  some  sort,  and 
hence  become  an  object  of  regard,  is  that  of  a  Norwegian  king, 
Halfdan  the  Black.^  In  his  lifetime  he  had  been  most  pros- 
perous, i.e,  blessed  with  abundance.  On  his  death  he  was 
brought  to  a  certain  spot  in  his  realm  for  burial,  but  "so 
greatly  did  men  value  him  that  when  the  news  came  that  he 
was  dead,"  chief  men  came  from  different  parts  of  his  kingdom, 
"  and  all  requested  that  they  might  take  his  body  with  them 
and  bury  it  in  their  various  provinces;  they  thought  that  it 
would  bring  abundance  to  those  who  obtained  it.     Eventually 

*  On  the  general  tendency  to  deal  with  'power'  in  personal  ways,  cf.  R.  R. 
Marett,  Folklore,  Vol.  XI,  p.  172. 
'  Frazer,  Adonis^  etc.,  p.  271. 


244  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

it  was  settled  that  the  body  was  distributed  in  four  places. " 
Frazer  points  out  that  this  king  belonged  to  a  family  which 
traced  its  descent  from  Frey,  the  Scandinavian  god  of  fertility. 
The  fundamentally  significant  fact  is,  however,  that  being 
I  a  man  distinguished  by  a  prosperous  life,  he  must,  therefore, 
!  possess  some  peculiar  potency  which  might  supposedly  be 
secured  permanently  for  that  section  of  the  country  in  which 
his  body  was  buried.  The  valuation  set  upon  this  king  was 
clearly  due  to  the  extraordinary  qualities  which  he  acquired, 
partly  at  least,  by  contiguous  association  with  the  years  of  his 
prosperous  reign. 

The  above  illustrations  are  of  considerable  importance  in 
that  they  show  how  easily  a  primitive  race  may  come  to  regard 
persons  as  especially  endowed  with  a  mystic  potence.  The 
basis  of  the  connection  in  the  last  case  is  quite  mechanical,  but 
it  is  a  step  toward  a  genuine  reverence  for  a  person  as  over 
against  mere  circumspection  or  fear  in  the  presence  of  an  un- 
defined, impersonal  power. 

The  same  tendency  to  fear  or  respect  the  person  as  the 
embodiment  of  a  mysterious  force  may  be  induced  in  other 
ways.  The  sorcerer  and  miracle-monger,  Frazer  regards  as 
the  chrysalis  out  which  of  the  gods  developed.  "  ^  The  real 
gods  of  Tana  may  be  said  to  be  the  disease-makers.  It 
is  surprising  how  these  men  are  dreaded,  and  how  firm  the 
belief  that  they  have  in  their  hands  the  power  of  life  and  death.* 
The  means  employed  by  these  sorcerers  to  effect  their  fell 
purpose  is  sympathetic  magic;  they  pick  up  the  refuse 
of  a  man's  food  or  other  rubbish  belonging  to  him,  and  burn 
it  with  certain  formalities ;  and  so  the  man  falls  ill  and  sends 
a  present,  an  embryo  sacrifice,  to  the  sorcerer  or  embryo 
god,  paying  him  to  stop  burning  the  rubbish,  for  he  believes 
that  when  it  is  quite  burnt  he  must  surely  die.  Here  we 
have  all  the  elements  of  a  religion  —  a  god,  a  worshipper, 


ORIGIN   AND   DEVELOPMENT  OF   DEITIES        245 

prayer,  and  sacrifice  —  in  process  of  evolution.  The  same 
supernatural  powers  which  tend  to  elevate  a  magician  in- 
to a  god  tend  also  to  raise  him  to  the  rank  of  a  chief  or 
a  king."* 

It  is  further  possible  that  actual  persons  may  become 
associated  with  abundant  crops,  giving  rise  to  the  idea  of  a 
mystic  connection  between  the  two.  This  is  clearly  illustrated 
in  the  legend  related  by  Frazer  of  the  above-mentioned  Scan- 
dinavian god  Frey.^  He  was  the  god  of  fertility,  but  was 
reputed  to  have  been  originally  a  king  of  Sweden  at  Upsala. 
**The  years  of  his  reign  were  plenteous,  and  the  people  laid 
the  plenty  to  his  account.  So  when  he  died  they  would  not 
burn  him,  as  it  had  been  customary  to  do  with  the  dead  before 
his  time ;  but  they  resolved  to  preserve  his  body,  believing 
that,  so  long  as  it  remained  in  Sweden,  the  land  would  have 
abundance  and  peace. "  Whether  this  legend  has  any  basis 
in  fact  or  not,  it  clearly  illustrates  a  very  natural  method  by 
which  the  dead  may  come  to  be  revered,  and,  through  the  con- 
ception of  a  potency  or  mystic  ^  power, '  be  associated  with 
some  particular  and  prominent  interest  in  the  life  of  a  peo- 
ple. Frazer  cites  a  number  of  other  legends  of  kings  dis- 
membered and  buried  in  different  places  for  the  sake  of  dis- 
seminating their  *  power. '  ^ 

The  large  place  held  by  gods  of  fertility  among  the  primitive 
Mediterranean  peoples  is  well  known.  It  seems  not  unrea- 
sonable to  suppose  that  these  may  owe  their  origin  in  part 
to  the  association  of  peculiar  powers  with  actual  persons. 
Frazer  points  out  that  large  statues  of  the  gods  of  fertility 
were  often  placed  in  picturesque  localities,  suggestive  of  the 
manifestation  of  the  '  power '  of  vegetation.    Two  cases  are 

*  The  Golden  Bough,  Vol.  I,  pp.  137,  138. 

*  Adonis,  Attis  and  Osiris,  p.  272. 

*  Adonis,  etc.,  pp.  271  ff.,  also  footnote  i,  p.  271. 


U^ 


I 


246  DEVELOPMENT   OF   RELIGION 

mentioned  where  a  "noble  river  issues  abruptly  from  the  rock 
to  spread  fertility  through  the  rich  vale  below.  Nowhere 
could  man  more  appropriately  revere  those  great  powers  of 
nature  to  whose  favor  he  ascribes  the  fruitfulness  of  the  earth, 
and  through  it  the  life  of  animate  creation.  With  its  cool  and 
bracing  air,  its  mass  of  verdure,  its  magnificent  stream  of  pure 
ice-cold  water  —  so  grateful  in  the  burning  heat  of  summer  — 
and  its  wide  stretch  of  fertile  land,  the  valley  may  well  have 
been  the  residence  of  an  ancient  prince  or  high-priest.  .  .  . 
The  place  is  a  paradise  of  birds.  .  .  .  Yet  a  little  way  ofif, 
beyond  the  beneficent  influence  of  the  springs  and  streams, 
all  is  desolation,  in  summer  an  arid  waste  broken  by  great 
marshes  and  wide  patches  of  salt,  in  winter  a  broad  sheet  of 
stagnate  water,  which,  as  it  dries  up  with  the  growing  heat 
of  the  sun,  exhales  a  poisonous  malaria.  ...  No  wonder  the 
smiling  luxuriance  of  the  one  landscape,  sharply  contrasting 
with  the  bleak  sterility  of  the  other,  should  have  rendered  it  in 
the  eyes  of  primitive  man  a  veritable  Garden  of  God."  ^  As 
the  author  quoted  suggests,  we  have  here  a  typical  natural  situ- 
ation in  which  primitive  man  would  imagine  a  '  power '  to  be 
present.  In  different  ways  he  might  come  to  believe  that  this 
*  power'  was  the  expression  of  a  personal  agent.  Either  an 
actual  person  might  be  the  focus  of  attention,  or,  on  the  an- 
alogy of  another  situation  in  which  a  person  actually  seemed 
to  display  remarkable  power,  he  would  come  to  the  conclusion 
that  the  *  power'  manifested  before  him  was  to  be  accounted 
for  in  a  similar  manner.  We  know  that  the  Semitic  peoples 
worshipped  many  of  their  kings  when  they  were  alive,  e.g.  at 
Babylon,  in  Moab,  and  in  Edom.  Their  names  indicate  that 
they  were  conceived  as  related  to  the  real  deities  of  the  people. 
It  is  not,  therefore,  impossible,  that  in  these  cases  we  have 
actual  reminiscences  of  times  when  men  were  supposed  to  have 
*  Adonis,  etc.,  pp.  45,  46.     Cf.  similar  descriptions,  ibid.,  pp.  15, 16,  et  seq. 


ORIGIN   AND   DEVELOPMENT  OF   DEITIES        247 


superior  '  power '  through  association  with  some  aspect  of  the 
bounty  of  nature.* 

It  is  possible  that  the  '  rain-maker, '  a  familiar  person  among 
many  primitive  peoples,  is  an  embryonic  god  of  fertility.  It 
is  easy  to  see  how  the  man  who  is  supposed  to  be  able  to  make 
rain  would  be  revered  in  a  peculiar  way.  Among  the  Niger 
tribes  some  of  the  kings  are  regarded  as  endowed  with  this 
power.^ 

Various  animals  may  come  to  be  regarded  as  deities  in  the 
same  way  as  persons,  for  the  animal,  to  the  natural  man,  is 
really  a  person,  often  powerful  and  mysterious.  Embryonic 
forms  of  worship  may  be  noted  in  those  cases  where  an  animal 
is  honored  and  complimented  and  sometimes  even  wept  over 
before  it  is  killed.  The  purpose  of  such  performances  is 
doubtless  to  forestall  any  attempt  on  the  part  of  the  animal  to 
use  its  much-dreaded  'power'  against  its  captor.  Such  acts 
are  not  worship,  but  they  are  typical  of  the  kind  of  acts  out  of 
which  worship  grows.  Reclus  relates  that  certain  of  the  Es- 
kimo, before  setting  upon  a  stranded  whale,  receive  it  with 
divine  honors,  speeches,  and  compliments.^  The  Lillooet 
Izidians  act  in  a  similar  way  when  they  are  about  to  killabear.'* 
^yrhe  hunting  of  various  animals  among  the  Malays  is  preceded 
by  all  sorts  of  apologies  and  explanations  to  the  victims.^ 

We  thus  see  how  the  respect  for  animals,  persons,  and  spirits 
is  based  upon  the  supposition  that  they  are  possessed  of  ex- 
traordinary powers.    Frazer,  in  his  various  writings,  has  col- 

•  *  The  significance  of  burning  the  *  king-god/  much  dwelt  upon  by  Frazer, 
does  not  concern  us  here.  We  may  remark  in  passing  that  the  killing  of  the 
god  was  supposed  to  set  free  the  'power'  he  possessed  that  it  might  be  active 
in  the  restoration  of  vegetation.  ^  Leonard,  op.  cit.,  p.  379. 

'  Quoted  by  Hobhouse,  Morals  in  Evolution,  Vol.  II,  p.  13. 

*  James  Teit,  "The  Lillooet  Indians,"  Memoirs  American  Museum  of 
Natural  History,  Vol.  IV. 

^  Skeat,  Malay  Magic,  gives  many  illustrations  of  these  curious  practices. 


248  DEVELOPMENT   OF   RELIGION 

lected  many  illustrations  of  the  so-called  *  man-gods. '  The 
whole  series  of  curious  beliefs  and  practices  connected  with 
these  personages  is  of  course  the  outcome  of  the  idea  that  they 
have  a  *  power '  of  some  sort  which  is  sometimes  so  indepen- 
dent of  their  personal  life  that  it  may  be  best  utilized  by  the  de- 
struction of  that  personal  life  itself.  The  ceremonies  of  killing 
the  person  in  order  to  render  his  '  power '  more  generally  avail- 
able should  not  be  classed  as  magical,  but  rather  as  quite  of  a 
kind  with  many  of  those  associated  with  full-fledged  deities.^ 
The  deity  is  not  of  necessity  a  being  whose  *  power '  is  a  part 
of  himself,  the  natural  emanation  of  his  personality,  as  is 
thought  to  be  the  case  among  those  of  more  advanced  religious 
development;  at  least  a  measure  of  the  regard  in  which  he  is 
held  may  be  the  outcome  of  the  belief  that  there  resides  in  him 
a  purely  impersonal  contagion.  Much  of  the  primitive  Isra- 
elitish  worship  of  Yahweh  illustrates  this.^  No  one  who  ex- 
amines the  accounts  of  primitive  deities   can  avoid  feeling 

*  "The  immediate  motive  [of  deification]  is  nothing  but  the  vague  inference 
from  great  natural  gifts  or  from  strange  fortunes  to  supernatural  visitation, 
or  from  power  during  life  to  power  prolonged  beyond  it. "  (Sir  Charles  Lyall, 
Asiatic  Studies,  ist  series,  p.  20.)  This  writer's  discussion  of  the  development 
of  deities  is  most  interesting,  and  is  in  many  respects  similar  to  the  view  of  this 
chapter.  For  example,  he  says,  p.  18,  ibid.:  "So  far  as  I  have  been  able  to 
trace  back  the  origin  of  the  best-known  minor  provincial  deities,  they  are  usu- 
ally men  who  have  earned  special  promotion  and  brevet  rank  among  disem- 
bodied ghosts  by  some  peculiar  acts  or  accident  of  their  lives  or  deaths.  .  .  . 
Popular  deifications  appear  to  have  been  founded,  in  their  simplest  form,  on 
mere  wonder  and  pity,"  etc.     See  also  ibid.,  pp.  37  f. 

^  This  notion  seems  to  be  present  in  the  story  of  Moses  and  the  burning 
bush ;  in  the  various  precautions  which  both  the  people  and  their  leaders  were 
commanded  to  exercise  at  the  time  of  their  encampment  about  Sinai.  The 
whole  region  was  surcharged,  and  the  greatest  care  was  imperative.  So  also  in 
the  case  of  Uzzah's  putting  forth  his  hand  to  steady  the  ark  lest  it  topple  over, 
and  his  being  stricken  down  by  the  potency  within,  which  was  evidently  quite 
mechanical,  for  the  act  of  Uzzah  must  have  been  quite  involuntary,  or,  if 
voluntary,  it  was  surely  actuated  by  an  intent  that  could  hardly  be  called  in 
question. 


ORIGIN  AND   DEVELOPMENT  OF  DEITIES        249 

that  in  one  way  or  another  the  hypothesis  of  this  magic  and 
impersonal  potence  enters  largely  into  all  beliefs  and  prac- 
tices connected  with  them.  We  have  tried  to  point  out  how 
naturally  this  potence  is  associated  with  persons  and  animals, 
and  have  maintained  that  this  association  is  one  of  the  first 
steps  in  the  evolution  of  a  purely  personal  deity.  There  are, 
however,  other  important  forces  to  be  taken  into  accoimt,  and 
to  these  we  now  must  turn. 

VI 

As  we  have  seen,  the  primitive  man  easily  tends  to  interpret 
his  feelings  of  value  in  terms  of  a  mysterious,  vaguely  con- 
ceived '  force  ^ ;  but  the  values  themselves  are  largely  of  social 
origin,  and  the  social  factor  is  continuously  present,  enhancing 
them  and  rendering  them  stable  and  permanent.  Indeed  it  is 
largely  through  the  presence  of  a  social  body  of  some  sort  that 
the  individual  acquires  prominence  of  any  kind,  especially  the 
reputation  of  being  endowed  with  'power'  or  wisdom.^ 

It  would,  of  course,  be  strange  if  a  primitive  social  group  did 
not  think  of  all  that  affected  it  in  some  sort  of  social  termi- 
nology. Its  customs,  its  arts,  all  the  aspects  of  its  culture, 
would  almost  inevitably  be  associated  with  the  initiative,  skill, 
or  cunning,  of  some  person  or  animal.  To  be  convinced  that 
this  is  the  case,  we  need  only  note  the  large  number  of  cul- 
ture-hero legends  in  primitive  mythology.  The  play  of  fancy 
would  have  much  to  do  with  extending  and  giving  content  to 
these  concepts,  and  in  proportion  as  these  constructions  of 
fancy  were  interwoven  with  the  people's  conception  of  its  life 
and  destiny  would  they  acquire  a  religious  value.^ 

^  Cf.  Chap,  xii,  infra. 

2  Cf.  Hobhouse,  Morals  in  Evolution,  Vol.  II,  p.  28,  "Where  the  mythical 
being  (i.e.  culture-hero)  comes  into  relation  with  the  origin  and  life  of  nature  or 
with  the  customs  or  destinies  of  man,  he  may  be  said  to  belong  to  religion." 


250  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

The  '  All-father '  of  the  southeast  Australians  illustrates 
quite  clearly  the  way  in  which  a  social  group  may  build  up  such 
a  concept,  or  perhaps  we  should  say,  shows  how  the  tribe, 
with  its  fundamental  economic  and  social  interests,  is  the  soil 
out  of  which  the  notion  of  a  culture-hero  grows.  In  the  case 
of  this  '  All-father, '  each  trait  and  characteristic  can  be  clearly 
traced  back  to  the  structure  and  interests  of  the  social  body 
which  believes  in  him.  He  is,  according  to  Howitt,  an  old 
black-fellow  to  whom  the  natives,  under  different  names,  at- 
tribute the  origin  of  everything.  The  whole  content  of  their 
notion  is  clearly  an  extension  through  fancy  of  the  esteem 
in  which  the  actual  old  men  of  the  different  groups  are  held. 
They  are  regarded  with  the  greatest  respect,  and  upon  them 
rests  the  determination  of  all  questions  of  tribal  polity  and  of 
ceremonial  activity.  This  'old  man'  is  represented  as  for- 
merly dwelling  upon  earth,  but  afterward  ascending  to  the 
sky-land,  where  he  still  observes  mankind,  going  and  doing 
what  he  pleases.  Even  his  attribute  of  immortality  is  quiti 
easily  explainable,  for  in  this  particular  he  merely  realizes 
the  natural  state  of  mankind,  for  all  would  live  forever  if  not 
prematurely  killed  by  evil  magic* 

This  culture-hero  of  the  southeast  Australians  "is  the  em- 
bodiment, "  says  Howitt,  "  of  the  idea  of  a  venerable,  kindly 
head-man  of  a  tribe,  full  of  knowledge  and  tribal  wisdom,  and 
all-powerful  in  magic,  of  which  he  is  the  source,  with  virtues, 
feelings,  passions,  such  as  the  aborigines  regard  them."     He 

*  Op.  cit.,  p.  500.  This  is  a  most  interesting  suggestion  as  to  the  origin  of 
the  idea  of  the  continued  existence  of  deities.  Inasmuch  as  violent  deaths  or 
deaths  from  disease  were  probably  the  most  familiar  type  to  primitive  man,  it  is 
easy  to  see  that  the  idea  of  death  would  tend  to  get  connected  with  that  of  the 
mysterious  potency  of  nature,  usable  as  it  is  both  for  good  and  for  ill.  He 
would  come  to  believe,  then,  that,  but  for  the  evil  intent  of  some  one  wielding 
this  terrible  force,  his  existence  as  a  man  might  continue  without  any  definitely 
assigned  limits.  This  notion  of  death  as  due  to  exercise  of  'magic  power/ 
with  evil  intent,  is  practically  universal  among  natural  races. 


ORIGIN  AND   DEVELOPMENT   OF   DEITIES        251 

is  imagined  simply  as  the  idealization  of  those  qualities  which 
they  conceive  as  worthy  of  imitation.  "  Such  would  be  a  man 
who  is  skilful  in  the  use  of  weapons  of  offence  and  defence, 
all-powerful  in  magic,  but  generous  and  liberal  to  his  people, 
who  does  no  injury  or  violence  to  any  one,  yet  treats  with 
severity  any  breaches  of  custom  and  morality. "  He  has  no 
divine  significance,  however,  in  their  eyes,  and  is  seldom  men- 
tioned.^ The  term  '  father,'  applied  to  him,  is  in  common  use 
with  reference  to  all  the  elder  men  of  the  groups,  and  hence 
has  significance,  not  as  indicating  their  possession  of  the 
Christian  notion  of  a  divine  father,  but  as  indicating  possible 
conditions  from  which  more  advanced  notions  may  have 
sprung. 

This  'All-father'  of  the  Australians  is  of  especial  interest 
because  the  social  origin  of  all  his  attributes  is  so  clearly  in 
evidence,  attributes  which  are,  as  far  as  they  themselves  are 
concerned,  sufficient  for  quite  a  definite  deity,  but  which  in  this 
case  do  not  apply  to  one  who  receives  any  worship  or  who 
is  connected  in  any  way  with  their  ceremonial  activities.  We 
have  in  him,  as  it  were,  a  one-sided  development,  a  character 
which  has  acquired  the  attributes  of  a  deity  in  a  social  group 
which  does  not  seem  to  feel  the  need  of  a  deity,  possibly  be- 
cause of  the  peculiar  way  in  which  its  attention  is  absorbed  by 
the  initiation  ceremonies  and  other  rites.  At  any  rate,  it  is 
evident  that  the  attributes  of  a  divine  personage  are  so  defi- 
nitely of  social  origin  that  they  may  appear  without  the 
clear  development  of  the  deistic  consciousness  itself. 

Among  the  Central  Australians  with  a  less  advanced  social 
organization  there  are  many  stories  of  creators  or  transformers. 
These  beings  are  conceived  as  related  to  the  rites  and  customs 

^  Howitt,  op.  cit.,  pp.  501  and  507,  Cf.  with  Howitt's  account  that  of 
Parker,  The  Euahlayi  Tribe,  among  which  branch  of  Australians  the  'All- 
father'  becomes  a  quasi-deity. 


J 


252  iDEVELOPMENT  OF  RELIGION 

of  the  groups,  and  are  interesting,  not  as  deities,  but  as  illus- 
trations of  how  social  bodies  readily  associate  the  existing 
status  of  things  with  the  exercise  of  a  peculiar  prowess  of 
personal  beings.  As  we  have  said,  this  is  a  real  step  in  the 
natural  history  of  the  deistic  conceptions  of  religion. 

Other  significant  illustrations  are  furnished  by  the  Todas. 
The  exact  nature  of  their  notions  of  deities  is  obscure  because 
of  the  probable  change  which  has  taken  place  in  their  economic 
interests.  They  really  have  a  pantheon  of  gods,  and  what  we 
wish  here  to  call  attention  to  is  that  these  well-developed  gods 
have,  many  of  them,  the  earmarks  of  culture-heroes.  Thus, 
there  is  an  added  presumption  that  the  culture-hero  may, 
under  appropriate  social  conditions,  become  a  god. 

Of  especial  interest  is  the  myth  regarding  one  of  their  more 
important  gods,  Meilitars.  He  is  said  to  have  been  a  Toda 
youth  of  great  cunning.  The  gods  said  of  him,  "  We  cannot 
kill  him;  he  has  some  power;  let  us  try  his  power. ^^  (Italics 
ours.)  Various  natural  features  of  their  country  they  explain 
as  the  outcome  of  these  tests.  The  gods  could  not  outwit 
him,  and  so  finally  admitted  that  he,  also,  was  a  god.  He 
is  closely  associated  with  two  clans  and  with  the  dairy  rit- 
ual of  one  in  particular,  and  the  stories  told  of  him  show 
quite  clearly  that  he  is  a  deity  developed  from  an  ordinary 
culture-hero  and  trickster.^  We  should  not  fail  to  note  that 
the  sign  which  first  betrayed  his  unusual  character  was  his 
possession  of  some  sort  of  power.  Here,  then,  we  have  a  god 
who  is  ideally  a  member  of  a  social  group,  and  he  might 
well  have  been  at  one  time  a  real  man  distinguished  by  his 
cunning  and  the  reputation  of  his  having  unusual  powers. 

The  culture-heroes  of  the  North  American  Indians,  whether 
they  be  men  or  animals,  are  all  thought  to  have  been  in  pecul- 
iar contact  with  the  mysterious  potency,  wakonda,  manitou, 

*  Cf.  Rivers,  op.  cit.,  p.  206. 


ORIGIN  AND  DEVELOPMENT  OF  DEITIES       253 

etc.,  as  it  is  variously  called.  In  many,  if  not  in  all,  cases  they 
are,  in  part,  low  tricksters.  In  this  phase  they  certainly  do 
not  rise  to  the  dignity  of  deities,  but  are  rather  the  idealiza- 
tion of  what  is  striven  after  by  the  tribe  in  its  various  sports. 
But  in  many  cases  the  approach  to  a  deity  is  made  in  the  asso- 
ciation of  these  beings  with  the  objects  of  social  interest  in  the 
tribe  and  with  its  origin,  history,  and  ceremonials.^ 

More  extended  illustration  of  the  culture-hero  conception 
is  scarcely  necessary  here.  What  we  are  desirous  of  empha- 
sizing is  that  in  it  and  related  concepts  there  is  excellent 
illustration  of  the  tendency  of  social  groups  to  think  of  what 
concerns  them  in  personal  terms.  The  culture-hero  is  not  of 
necessity  a  divinity,  but  rather  a  man,  much  like  ordinary  men, 
or  even  an  animal,  who  by  luck  or  cunning  has  done  things 
which  continue  for  all  time,  sometimes  to  the  advantage, 
sometimes  to  the  disadvantage,  of  mankind.  Sometimes  he 
is  a  mere  trickster,  sometimes  a  really  great  figure  in  the 
mythical  history  of  the  tribe.  He  is  generally  thought  of  as 
possessing  peculiar  powers  or  unusual  control  over  the '  power.' 

There  is  an  interesting  similarity  between  the  myth  of  the 
Norwegian  king,  discussed  above,  and  the  stories  of  the  cul- 
ture-heroes. In  both  cases  a  person  is  regarded  as  having  had 
great  influence  over  the  welfare  of  his  tribe  through  his  superior 
ability.  As  has  been  suggested,  in  proportion  as  this  person 
is  conceived  as  playing  a  part  in  the  present  active  life  of  the 
group,  does  his  r61e  as  deity  really  appear.  The  beginnings 
of  this  may  be  seen  among  the  Melanesians,  where  certain 
spirits  and  ghosts  are  supposed  to  be  able  to  exert  their  mana 

*  The  reader  is  urged  to  consult,  in  this  connection,  the  valuable  Introduc- 
tion by  Boas  to  '*The  traditions  of  the  Thompson  River  Indians,"  James 
Teit,  Memoirs  of  the  American  Folklore  Society,  Vol.  VI.  Dr.  Boas  here  dis- 
cusses the  various  aspects  of  the  culture-hero  as  he  appears  among  the  Indians 
of  the  Northwest,  tracing  the  evolution  from  the  selfish  trickster  to  the  altruistic 
personage  who  is  a  quasi-deity. 


V 


254  DEVELOPMENT  OF  RELIGION 

for  or  against  living  men,  and,  in  consequence,  rites  have 
developed  suggestive  of  religious  ceremonies,  for  the  pur- 
pose of  inducing  in  the  spirit  a  proper  attitude  toward  living 
men.  It  is  instructive  to  think  of  ancestor-worship  in  this 
connection.  The  culture-hero  and  the  ancestor  are,  of  course, 
not  convertible  terms,  but  the  same  psychical  attitude  is 
present  in  some  measure  in  the  regard  accorded  to  each.  In 
addition  to  other  elements  undoubtedly  entering  into  the  wor- 
ship of  ancestors,  the  idea  is  doubtless  quite  often  present 
that  they  have  control  over  the  'power'  in  a  marked  degree, 
so  that  they  are  reverenced  and  dreaded  as  a  matter  of  course. 
This  belief  in  the  unusual  powers  of  the  dead  is  very  evident 
in  the  ancestor-worship  described  by  Leonard  as  existing 
among  the  Niger  tribes. 

These  conceptions,  whether  of  ancestors  or  culture-heroes, 
are  all  social  products,  the  outcome  of  definite  types  of 
social  ideals  and  social  organization.  Just  why  they  are 
not  always  divinities  depends  upon  various  intricate  social 
conditions,  which  we  shall  not  always  be  able  to  specify. 
Our  interest  here  is  in  the  fact  that  the  idea  of  worthfulness, 
and  especially  of  worth  as  dependent  upon  a  mystic  potence, 
does  in  reality  become  associated  with  persons  and  some- 
times with  their  ghosts  and  with  mythical  beings  of  various 
kinds. 

The  above  considerations  lend  weight  to  our  hypothesis  that 
deities  are  constructions  within  particular  social  matrices,  and 
acquire  their  definiteness  and  individuality,  as  far  as  they 
have  any  at  all,  in  the  atmosphere  of  social  intercourse. 
They  are  not  formed  merely  upon  the  analogy  of  social  life 
and  its  ideals,  they  are  rather  quite  explainable  extensions,  or 
/developments,  of  that  life  with  reference  to  certain  acute  inter- 
,'  ests.  The  deity  is  not  the  product  of  some  supposed  faculty 
of  personification^  but  is  possibly  an  actual  person  to  start 


ORIGIN  AND   DEVELOPMENT  OF   DEITIES        255 

with,  who  is  regarded  as  closely  and  actively  related  to  some 
acute  interest.  The  worship  is  not  based  upon  the  analogy 
of  social  activity ;  it  is  a  portion  of  this  activity  extended  to 
include  within  its  scope  the  supposedly  superior  person.  So, 
also,  the  characteristics  of  the  deity  are  not  merely  reflections 
of  the  ideals  of  the  social  group,  they  are  extensions  of  con- 
cepts in  daily  use  in  ordinary  social  intercourse.  The  whole 
set  of  value-attitudes  clustering  about  the  deity  have  thus 
acquired  their  specific  form  and  permanence.  Their  associa- 
tion with  a  deity  is  not,  however,  an  afterthought,  for  the 
deity  is  the  concrete  and  communicable  form  in  which  they 
often  first  come  to  consciousness. 


VII 

We  have  seen  above  how  varied  are  the  ways  in  which  the 
primitive  world  of  values  may  acquire  personal  associations, 
and  how,  when  these  are  once  established,  the  ground  is  laid 
for  the  general  development  of  deistic  'concepts.'*    This 

^  The  account  here  offered  of  the  origin  of  deities  is  very  different  from  the 
theory  proposed  by  some  philologists,  namely,  that  they  are  personifications 
of  natural  objects  and  natural  phenomena.  As  Farnell  says  {Cults  of  the 
Greek  States,  Vol.  I,  p.  4) :  "  It  is  doubtful  if  this  formula  (that  of  personifica- 
tion) is  ever  of  any  avail  for  explaining  the  origins  of  any  religion ;  whether  the 
personification  of  a  natural  phenomenon  is  a  phrase  appropriate  to  the  process 
which  gives  birth  to  the  earliest  religious  conceptions  of  a  primitive  race. 
The  words  suggest  the  belief,  for  instance,  that  the  primitive  ancestor  of  the 
Greek  was  aware  of  certain  natural  phenomena  as  such,  and  then  by  a  volun- 
tary effort  gave  them  a  personal  and  human  form  in  his  imagination.  It  is 
doubtful  if  the  primitive  mind  could  personify  things  thus,  for  it  probably  lacked 
this  sense  of  the  limits  of  personahty,  or  the  border-Hne  between  the  sentient 
and  the  non-sentient."  Farnell's  strictures  upon  the  personification  theory  are 
quite  legitimate.  What  has  often  seemed  to  be  personification  turns  out,  upon 
closer  examination,  to  have  been  originally  something  quite  different ;  i.e.  either 
an  impersonal '  force '  is  the  object  of  attention,  or  a  person  or  spirit  is  respected 
because  of  its  supposed  control  over  this  'force.*     Furthermore,  the  develop- 


256  DEVELOPMENT  OF  RELIGION 

further  development  is  conditioned  almost  entirely  by  the  play 
of  social  processes  and  modes  of  thought. 

The  first  and  most  obvious  of  these  social  influences  is 
that  which  was  discussed  at  length  in  the  preceding  section, 
namely,  that  which  appears  in  the  tendency  to  associate  vital 
interests  with  the  activity  of  some  person  or  animal.  The  so- 
cial body,  as  has  also  been  shown,  adds  further  determination 
to '  concepts '  of  deities  by  the  methods  of  intercourse  and  activ- 
ity prevailing  within  it.  It  is  only  when  this  process  of  sociali- 
zation begins  that  the  deity  acquires  much  definite  character 
and  becomes  the  embodiment  of  the  higher  valuations  of  the 
group.  Another  phase  of  the  social  reaction  upon  embryonic 
deities  is  the  tendency,  mentioned  above,  to  consider  them 
members  of  the  group  formed  by  the  worshippers  themselves. 
This  belief  may  find  various  expressions,  but  usually  the  god 
is  regarded  as  the  parent  or  creator  of  the  fr\he  or  rlan.^  Such 
a  belief  may  be  developed  in  part  through  a  reverence  for 
actual  ancestors,  but  it  is  also  partly  due  to  the  fact  that  the 
primitive  man  can  clearly  envisage  as  friendly  only  those 
things  or  persons  which  he  can  make  a  part  of  his  group.^ 

But  the  lines  of  social  determination  are  intricate!  and 
extend  even  farther  than  indicated  above.  The  methods 
by  which  a  group  deals  with  its  deities  are  important  factors 
in  the  development  of  their  characters.  Even  if  a  primitive 
race  started  out  with  the  vague  notion  of  forces,  impersonal 
and  quasi-mechanical,  it  could  scarcely  avoid  falling  into 
social  methods  of  dealing  with  them,  and  these  methods  would 

ment  a  deity  may  pass  through  is  not  due  to  a  development  of  personifying 
power  in  a  people,  but  is  rather,  as  we  have  shown,  due  to  a  tendency  to  associate 
persons  with  matters  of  social  interest  and  concern. 

*  Cf.  Saussaye,  The  Religion  of  the  Ancient  Teutons,  p.  404;  W.  R.  Smith 
and  G.  A.  Barton,  on  the  primitive  Semites.  Similar  illustrations  are  furnished 
by  practically  all  the  natural  religions.. 

'  Religion  of  the  Semites,  2d  ed.,  p.  121. 


ORIGIN  AND  DEVELOPMENT  OF  DEITIES       257 

be  a  constant  stimulus  to  the  group  to  conceive  of  them  as 
personal  or  as  under  the  control  of  personal  beings.  At  any 
rate,  if  we  take  those  peoples  which  do  have  fairly  definite 
personal  concepts  of  superior  powers,  we  find  the  methods 
of  approaching  them  are  clearly  extensions  of  the  ordinary 
methods  of  social  intercourse.  They  are  evidently  carried 
directly  over  from  the  methods  of  seeking  the  help  or  favor 
of  fellow-men.  Granted  that  the  idea  of  a  superior  person- 
ality once  appears  in  the  religious  consciousness,  it  is  easy 
to  see  that  the  problem  of  worship  itself,  and  of  different 
types  of  worship,  is  quite  a  simple  one.  It  seems  almost  self- 
evident  that  the  deity  will  be  approached  and  treated  pre- 
cisely along  the  lines  of  intercourse  within  the  group  of  wor- 
shippers. He  will  be  bargained  with,  or  treated  with  respect, 
because  he  is  recognized  as  having  the  advantage  in  power. 
He  will  be  flattered,  offered  gifts,  feasted,  and  entreated 
precisely  as  would  occur  in  a  human  society  if  any  member 
were  felt  to  surpass  the  rest  in  some  important  type  of  excel- 
lence. In  general,  the  modes  of  worship  will  be,  first  of  all, 
repetitions  of  the  acts  called  forth  by  the  object  or  situation 
which  has  aroused  the  interest.  In  what  better  way  could 
keepers  of  flocks  conceive  of  honoring  their  god  and  keeping 
him  interested  in  men  than  by  the  ordinary  communal  feast, 
of  recognized  importance  in  maintaining  proper  social  rela- 
tions on  the  human  side?  The  peoples  with  whom  witch- 
craft is  of  dominating  importance  will  necessarily  treat  their 
deities  after  the  manner  of  treating  the  human  sorcerer. 
Likewise,  phallic  rites  grow  out  of  one  form  of  social  inter- 
course, and  a  deity  of  fertility  would  naturally  be  worshipped 
through  sexual  excesses. 

Thus,  what  may  be  called  the  framework  of  the  deity  is 
dependent  upon  the  objects  of  social  interest  and  the  methods 
of  social  activity.    There  is  still,  however,  a  hody^  or  filling 


258  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

ifij  to  account  for,  and  this  is  in  large  measure  due  to  the  play 
of  fancy  as  stimulated  by  human  associations.  It  is  easy 
to  see  how  this  factor  is  operative,  and  that  it  would  be  along 
lines  in  which  the  people's  ideas  are  already  running.  The 
oldest  myths  of  Isis  represent  her  "as  an  independent  deity 
dwelling  in  the  midst  of  the  ponds  without  husband  or  lover, 
who  gave  birth  spontaneously  to  a  son  whom  she  suckled 
among  the  reeds."  *  The  primary  concept  here  is  apparently 
that  of  a  goddess  of  fertility,  the  personal  statement  of  the 
feeling  that  in  damp,  watery  places  there  is  a  'power'  which 
is  the  cause  of  vegetable  growth.  But  a  polyandrous  and 
exogamous  social  group  could  not,  in  its  play  of  fancy  about 
such  a  person,  think  of  her  as  being  different  from  themselves, 
and  consequently  the  picture  of  her  as  isolated  and  without 
husband  or  lover  would  be  drawn.  When,  at  a  later  period, 
she  is  represented  as  married  to  Osiris,  the  newer  social  order 
has  clearly  modified  the  play  of  fancy.  We  may  certainly 
regard  idle  fancy  and  story-telling,  as  these  inevitably  appear 
in  social  groups,  as  of  the  greatest  importance  in  the  develop- 
ment of  the  content  and  coloring  of  all  possible  deistic  concepts. 
In  this  fancy  we  do  not  have  a  radically  new  factor,  but  simply 
a  continuation,  in  a  particular  channel,  of  the  general  social 
process,  which  may  manifest  itself  in  the  most  varied  ways. 

The  importance  of  the  social  group  in  the  determination  of 
its  deities  is  well  illustrated  by  a  large  mass  of  material 
already  discussed  in  other  connections.  The  material  to 
which  we  refer  is  that  which  brings  to  light  the  relation  be- 
tween definiteness  of  religious  consciousness  and  the  degree  of 
social  organization.^  If  we  grant  the  validity  of  the  position 
before  taken  upon  this  point,  we  may  see  in  the  case  of 
deities  merely  special  instances  of  the  kind  akeady  referred 

*  Barton,  Semitic  Origins,  p.  116. 
»  Vide  supra,  Chap.  IV. 


ORIGIN  AND   DEVELOPMENT  OF   DEITIES        259 

to.  In  a  general  way  it  seems  to  be  true  that  primitive  and 
loosely  organized  groups  have  scattering  and  ill-organized 
ideas  of  deities,  whereas,  in  better-developed  groups,  the  gods 
are  more  definitely  conceived  and  have  more  clearly  defined 
powers.*  Many  illustrations  which  seem  apposite  might  be 
given,  and  yet  none  are  entirely  satisfactory,  because  it  is 
not  possible,  with  entire  assurance,  to  grade  different  peoples 
according  to  their  degree  of  social  development,^  and  we  are, 
furthermore,  far  from  sure,  in  most  cases,  that  we  have  an 
adequate  notion  of  the  actual  deistic  concepts  themselves,  ^  / 
which  we  thus  propose  to  call  higher  or  lower.  We  can  say, 
in  general,  that  peoples  subjected  to  highly  centralized  and 
absolute  forms  of  government  usually  have  equally  central- 
ized and  absolute  systems  of  deities,  while  peoples  having 
little  or  no  tribal  organization  have  vaguely  conceived  and 
even  transient  deities.  But  there  are  so  many  factors  to  be 
taken  into  account  in  all  such  cases  that  we  cannot  make 
dogmatic  assertions  about  any  of  them.  Both  extremes  we 
may  find  among  various  African  tribes,  and  it  is  certainly 
significant  that  the  Melanesians,^  with  almost  no  organized 
political  life  and  uncertain  chieftainship,  if  they  have  deities 
at  all,  have  only  embryonic  ones. 

Among  the  ancient  Teutons  the  gods  clearly  symbolized 
the  values  inherent  in  the  political  organization.  Saussaye 
says:  "...  the  moral  functions  of  the  gods  are  identical 
with  their  position  as  guardians  and  defenders  of  thing  and 

^  Thus  Pfleiderer  says  (Philosophy  of  Religion),  Gififord  Lecturers,  1894, 
Vol.  I,  p.  107),  that  spirits  were  only  definitely  religious  when  social  organiza- 
tion began  to  be.  "  So  long  as  men  still  lived  in  roaming  hordes  without  social 
organization,  there  was  also  still  merely  an  indefinite  swarm  of  spirits  without 
individual  qualities."  Gods  arise  with  family,  clan,  and  tribe.  The  divine 
hierarchy  develops  pari  passu  with  political  institutions. 

^  Vide  chapter  preceding,  p.  208. 

'  Codrington,  The  Melanesians,  Chap.  III. 


26o  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

host.  In  so  far  as  we  are  actually  acquainted  with  the  part 
they  play  in  Teutonic  law  and  in  the  cult,  we  find  the  gods 
punishing  those  who  transgress  against  them,  or  who  violate 
the  sacred  peace,  i.e.  the  regular  order  of  legal  procedure  or 
of  the  military  camp.  .  .  .  They  have  in  no  sense  become  the 
embodiment  of  certain  moral  qualities  or  ideals."  ^  Accord- 
ing to  the  same  writer,  ideas  of  gods  seem  to  have  had  little 
place  in  the  thought  of  the  free,  wandering  Vikings.  That 
many  of  them  were  godless  means  simply  that  their  reliance 
upon  their  own  strength,  in  their  wandering  life  of  danger, 
was  not  favorable  to  the  development  of  deities. 

We  are  concerned  in  this  chapter  only  with  the  deities  of 
relatively  primitive  religions.  The  natural  history  of  higher 
conceptions  will  be  taken  up  in  the  following  chapter.  Inas- 
much as  a  further  examination  of  the  social  determination 
of  deities  would  bring  us  into  these  higher  phases  of  the 
subject,  we  may  properly  reserve  other  aspects  for  the  next 
section. 

*  The  Religion  of  the  Ancient  Teutons,  p.  403. 


CHAPTER   X 

THE  PROBLEM   OF   MONOTHEISM   AND   OF  ETHICAL  CONCEP- 
TIONS  OF   THE   DEITY 

Thus  far  our  attention  has  been  confined  entirely  to  the 
origin  and  early  development  of  deistic  ideas.  We  have 
tried  to  show  that  they  have  a  fairly  ascertainable  natural 
history.  The  general  point  of  view  has  been  about  as  follows : 
A  deity  is  a  symbol,  more  or  less  personal  in  form,  of  a  value 
or  values  which  have  arisen  in  the  experience  of  some  individual 
person  or  people.  "Every  religious  standpoint  gathers  up 
into  its  concept  of  God  the  highest  known  values.  Not  only 
ethical  and  aesthetic  interests,  but  also  more  especially  the 
enthusiasms  as  well  as  the  feelings  of  dependence,  excited 
in  the  struggle  for  life,  urge  to  a  deeper  and  deeper  concen- 
tration, which  disburdens  itself  at  last  in  the  cry  of  *  God.' "  * 
As  we  have  seen,  there  are  values  of  all  grades  in  experience, 
but  the  most  insistent  and  the  most  permanent  of  them  tend, 
quite  often,  to  be  conceived  in  personal  terms,  that  is,  to  be 
associated  with,  or  symbolized  by,  the  expression  of  the  will 
of  some  conscious  agent. 

The  universe  as  it  is  presented  to  man,  whether  he  be  civ- 
ilized or  savage,  has  qualities  as  well  as  parts.  The  forces 
of  nature  affect  him  in  various  ways;  he  has  purposes  and 
hopes  which  he  cannot  but  strive  to  realize ;  he  has  fears  from 
which  he  cannot  but  flee.  Thus  his  life  is  far  from  being 
a  colorless  affair.  Moreover,  every  detail  of  his  world,  which 
he  has  literally  built  up  through  his  varied  strivings,  is 

*  HofiFding,  The  Philosophy  of  Religion,  p.  6i. 
261 


262  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

saturated  with  his  own  personality  and  with  all  sorts  of  ele- 
ments derived  from  his  human  associations.  He  must  think 
largely  in  social  terms  and  by  means  of  social  symbols.  It  is 
thus  almost  inevitable  that  he  should  express  his  conception  of 
the  ultimate  meaning  of  things,  the  significance  of  his  life 
and  his  efforts  in  terms  of  personal  and  social  relationships.!: 
This  tendency  has  been  amply  illustrated  in  the  preceding 
chapter. 

We  have  also  seen  that  primitive  man  vaguely  conceives 
of  the  world  as  pervaded  by  *  force '  which  is  constantly  affect- 
ing him  in  vital  ways  and  which  he  strives  in  some  measure  to 
control.  Before  this  notion,  however,  can  become  in  any 
sense  a  religious  one,  it  must  be  associated  with  conscious 
personal  agents.  We  have  tried  i(^^ow  how  this  may  occur, 
and,  further,  how  the  belief  in  spimbeings,  likewise  a  theory 
not  intrinsically  religious,  assistSy^he  primitive  man  in  bring- 
ing his  world,  with  its  piecemeal  conceptions  of  force,  into 
some  sort  of  personal  relationsnip  with  himself.  The  devel- 
opment which  is  thus  mediated  can  hardly  be  said  to  be 
in  the  direction  of  a  scientific  view  of  nature.  Instead,  it 
furnishes  a  very  favorable  context,  through  its  socialized 
conception  of  the  world,  for  the  development  of  an  appre- 
ciative rather  than  a  descriptive  attitude.  As  Hoffding 
says,  "religion  does  not  afford  an  understanding  of  existence 
such  as  the  intellect  demands,  neither  of  special  events,  nor 
are  its  ideas  conclusions  for  scientific  thought."  They  are 
rather  figures  whose  meaning,  as  far  as  they  can  have  any  at 
all,  must  be  in  their  **  serving  as  symbolical  expressions  for 
the  feelings,  the  aspirations,  and  the  wishes  of  men  in  their 

*  Cf.  Perry,  Ralph  Barton,  International  Journal  of  Ethics,  Vol.  15,  p.  67: 
"  My  conception  of  God  contains  an  idea  of  my  own  interests,  an  idea  of  the 
disposition  of  the  universe  toward  my  interests  and  some  plan  for  the  recon- 
ciliation of  these  terms."  Also  The  Monist,  October,  1904,  p.  756,  "The 
religious  object,  God,  is  a  social  object,  common  to  me  and  my  neighbor," 


ETHICAL  CONCEPTIONS  OF  THE  DEITY         263 

Struggle  for  existence."  "Dogma  has,"  however,  "hung 
its  leaden  weight  around  the  neck  of  these  symbols,  dragging 
them  down  into  spheres  in  which  they  are  exposed  both  to 
criticism  and  to  mockery."  ^ 

The  idea,  then,  of  a  deity,  built  up  in  some  manner,  whether 
in  the  precise  way  we  have  outlined  or  not,  represents  the 
extreme  development  of  the  socialized  conception  of  the 
universe.  It  does  not  come  from  man's  attempt  to  give  a 
scientific  description  of  the  world,  but  expresses  rather  the 
keenness  with  which  he  feels  his  personal  relation  to  the  general 
order  of  existence.  This,  certainly,  is  the  truth  regarding 
the  religious  attitude,  whether  such  relations  between  man  and 
the  world  actually  exist  or  not. 

Since  the  concepts  of  religion  symbolize  values  rather  than 
describe  an  objective  order  of  existence,  the  psychologist 
must  be  careful  to  avoid  treating  them  in  the  same  way  as 
he  would  the  concepts  of  science.  All  such  expressions  as 
*God,'  *  divine  life,'  'larger  life,' '  justification  by  faith,'  current 
in  the  religious  thought  of  many  people,  may  be  assumed 
to  stand  for  some  facts  in  the  experience  of  the  religious  mind. 
It  is  for  the  psychologist  to  determine  what  these  facts  may  be 
and  to  restate  them  in  psychological  form.  He  cannot  use 
them  unanalyzed  and  in  their  popular  sense. 

He  will  see  that  the  various  conceptions  of  religion  grow 
out  of  certain  valuational  attitudes  in  religious  individuals. 
This  is  entirely  aside  from  the  question  of  their  objective 
truth  or  falsity.  The  mere  fact  that  they  are  beliefs  of  some 
people  means  that  there  is  something  in  the  experience  of 
these  people  which  these  concepts  stand  for,  or  symbolize. 
But  while  these  concepts  refer  to  facts  of  experience,  it  is 
important  to  note  that  they  are  not  facts  which  belong  to 
the  same  species  as  percepts.  The  religionist  may  say  that  he 
>  Of.  cU.,  pp.  84,  93. 


J 


264  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

perceives  God  as  clearly  as  he  does  a  house,  but  he  speaks 
popularly  and  not  scientifically.  What  he  really  means  is 
that  he  is  conscious  of  a  certain  value  in  his  experience,  a 
value  which  is  as  vivid  to  him,  so  he  thinks,  as  the  perception 
of  an  external  object.  The  metaphysician  and  the  practical 
religious  individual  may  quite  believe  that  God  exists  as  an 
objective  fact,  and  they  may  offer  proof  that  is  to  them  con- 
vincing. Psychologically,  however,  God  is  not  perceived, 
nor  can  the  divine  mind  be  regarded  as  something  in  some 
way  continuous  with  the  experience  of  the  psychologist 
through  its  subconscious  phases.  God  may  be  an  existing 
fact,  but  even  the  religious  man  would  hardly  claim  that  his 
deity  is  a  phenomenon,  and  hence  capable  of  statement  in 
phenomenal  terms.  If  there  is  a  divine  mind,  its  relationship 
to  the  human  mind  cannot  be  expressed  in  any  spatial  or 
temporal  terms,  nor  in  terms  of  cause,  nor  in  any  other  thought 
category.*  In  other  words,  however  the  naive  mind  may 
choose  to  symbolize  that  relationship,  it  is  not  a  relation  of 
which  psychology  can  take  any  cognizance.  As  far  as  psy- 
chology is  concerned,  the  deity  may  be  said  to  be  a  value-atti- 
tude of  a  certain  kind  in  the  consciousness  of  some  individual 
or  individuals. 

One  of  the  objects  of  the  psychology  of  religion  is  to  trace 
the  development  of  these  religious  values  out  of  the  simpler 
types  of  value-attitude,  and  to  state  in  terms  of  the  rest  of 
experience  the  counterparts  of  such  objective  expressions  of 
value  as  God,  immortality,  faith,  and  the  divine  life.  In  other 
words,  if  psychology  is  concerned  with  a  description  of  the 
facts  and  laws  of  consciousness,  and  if  the  psychology  of  reli- 
gion is  a  subdivision  of  this  more  general  science,  it  deals 
simply  with  a  certain  portion  of  the  conscious  contents  and 
activities  which  are  the  subject-matter  of  general  psychology. 
*  Vide  Chapter  I,  supra,  p.  12. 


ETHICAL  CONCEPTIONS  OF  THE  DEITY         265 

It  must  state  in  the  accepted  language  of  psychology  the  nature 
of  those  conscious  states  which  are  called  religious. 

The  psychologist  has  given,  we  repeat,  an  individual 
consciousness  capable  of  being  modified  by  various  stimuli, 
but  it  is  not,  as  far  as  he  is  concerned,  a  part  of  a  larger  life, 
either  social  or  divine.  As  far  as  the  individual  consciousness 
is  concerned,  these  are  simply  terms  which  symbolize  imme- 
diately experienced  values  of  various  kinds.  As  we  have 
already  suggested,  it  is  the  business  of  the  psychologist  to 
endeavor  to  state  the  objective  conditions  under  which  these 
value-attitudes  arise.  This  is  true,  whether  the  value  be 
aesthetic  or  religious.  It  should  be  evident,  however,  that 
these  conditions  cannot  be  explained  through  the  use  of  the 
value  terms  themselves.  Thus  the  consciousness  of  aesthetic 
value  is  not  by  any  means  accounted  for  by  saying  that  the 
person  perceives  a  beautiful  object.  So,  also,  the  religious 
consciousness  is  not  explained  by  the  statement  that  the  soul 
in  some  way  perceives,  or  is  cognizant  of  divine  values. 

The  above  considerations  suggest  the  type  of  objection 
we  should  urge  against  such  a  statement  as  the  following: 
"If  there  is  a  divine  life  over  and  above  the  separate  streams 
of  individual  lives,  the  welling  up  of  this  larger  life  in  the 
experience  of  the  individual  is  precisely  the  point  of  contact 
between  the  individual  person  and  God.  The  organizing 
centre  for  religious  as  well  as  social  life  lies  beyond  the  boun- 
dary line  of  the  merely  individual  consciousness."  *  This  is  a 
pseudo-psychological  explanation  of  the  experience  of  con- 
version. If  we  translate  it  into  genuine  psychological  concepts, 
the  meaning  implied  seems  to  be  something  like  this:  The 
significance  of  the  experience  of  the  moment  is  not  com- 
prised in  its  bare  factual  presence,  that  is,  as  it  appears  super- 

*"The  psychology  of  religion,"  J.  D.  Stoops,  Journal  of  Philosophyy 
Psychology  and  Scientific  Methods,  Vol.  II,  p.  512. 


266  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

ficially.  The  experience  of  the  moment  comes  in  a  certain 
context  of  habit;  its  present  structure  is  strictly  relative  to 
innumerable  previous  experiences  of  the  individual.  No 
experience  can  be  completely  described  by  its  central  fact  or 
focus.  Sometimes  we  are  more  conscious  of  the  setting  of 
appreciation,  value,  worth,  or  significance,  whatever  we  may 
call  it,  than  at  other  times.  In  popular  language  we  may  say 
that  there  is  then  *  the  welling  up  of  a  larger  life,'  of  a  social 
consciousness,  or  of  a  divine  consciousness;  but,  in  the  lan- 
guage of  psychology,  that  which  '  wells  up '  is  an  accumula- 
tion of  subtle  value-attitudes  and  habits  which  are  definitely 
related  to  our  previous  experience  and  are  developed  out  of 
it  and  it  only. 

In  saying  all  this,  the  psychologist  need  not  dogmatically 
assert  that  his  description  of  the  structure  of  experience,  its 
contents  and  its  values,  is  an  exhaustive  one.  It  is  quite 
likely  that  every  fact  of  consciousness  means  more  in  the 
ultimate  constitution  of  things  (whatever  that  may  be)  than 
we  can  ever  state  in  our  descriptions,  but  as  far  as  psychology 
has  anything  to  say  about  it,  the  description  is  complete  when 
it  has  been  made  in  terms  of  the  experience  of  the  individual, 
taken  in  its  entirety,  and  not  as  a  fact  of  the  present  moment. 
In  the  ultimate  constitution  of  things,  this  may  be  the  contact 
of  the  individual  person  with  God.  The  broader  relationships 
of  the  present  moment  may  be  so  vivid  in  consciousness, 
their  significance  for  the  life  as  a  whole  may  be  so  great  that 
they  may  merit  the  objective  symbol  of  divine  or  of  Gody 
but,  from  the  point  of  view  of  science,  the  experience  is  still  a 
' vali4£-attitude'  arising  as  an  organic  part  of  the  stream  of 
consciousness  of  the  individual. 

The  psychology  of  religion  should,  then,  investigate  the  con- 
cepts, emotions,  and  attitudes  of  the  individual  which  are  com- 
monly called  religious,  interpreting  them  in  relation  to  the  other 


ETHICAL   CONCEPTIONS   OF   THE   DEITY         267 

facts  of  consciousness.  For  the  psychologist,  God  is  not  a  pos- 
tulate nor  an  elementary  factor  in  the  production  of  the  reli- 
gious life.  He  is  one  of  the  concepts  of  some  religious  lives,  and 
as  such  needs  explanation.  (We  may  say  the  same  of  all  the 
other  objects  with  which  the  religious  mind  constructs  and 
describes  its  universe  of  values.)  So  much  for  the  general 
point  of  view.  It  may  seem  to  some  that  it  is  applicable 
enough  in  the  remote  world  of  primitive  religion,  but  that  it 
cannot  be  applied  either  to  explain  the  origin  or  to  describe 
the  present  status  of  the  loftier  conceptions  of  God.  What, 
then,  of  monotheism,  and  especially  ethical  monotheism? 
Are  these  presuppositions  and  those  of  the  preceding  chapter 
adequate  for  the  belief  in  a  single  supreme  God  who  demands 
mercy  rather  than  sacrifice  ? 

The  questions  thus  raised  are  made  the  more  difficult  to 
answer  because  of  the  presuppositions  one  usually  brings  to 
them.  To  the  beginnings  of  ethical  monotheism,  as  they  are 
seen  in  the  later  religion  of  Israel,  are  ascribed  the  full  content 
of  meaning  that  they  have  for  the  reflective  religious  conscious- 
ness of  to-day.  Consequently  there  seems  to  be  an  inevitable 
hiatus  between  the  earlier  religion  of  these  people  and  their 
later  faith.  This  hiatus  is  deepened  by  the  assumption  that, 
while  some  value-concepts  may  be  admitted  to  have  had  a 
natural  history,  there  are  some  others  so  exalted  that  they 
cannot  be  so  explained.  In  fact,  to  attempt  to  trace  their 
origin  in  simpler  conditions  is  merely  an  attempt  to  deprive 
them  of  their  supreme  worth.  Now  this  very  feeling  that 
some  values  must  be  put  into  a  world  of  their  own  is,  itself, 
one  of  the  problems  with  which  the  psychology  of  the  appre- 
ciative consciousness  must  deal.  Fortunately,  the  beginnings 
of  the  tendency  can  be  clearly  traced  in  various  primitive 
modes  of  thought.  It  may  best  be  analyzed  and  illustrated 
in  connection  with  our  general  inquiry  into  the  origin  of  the 


268  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

monotheistic  idea.  It  will  find  further  illustration  in  our 
discussion  of  the  development  of  the  ethical  attributes  of 
the  deity. 

In  the  atmosphere  of  the  social  group  we  may  j&nd  every 
essential  factor  for  the  evolution  of  the  higher  types  of  mon- 
otheism.* It  is  back  to  the  social  matrix  also  that  we  must 
continually  go  in  order  to  interpret  properly  each  successive 
step  in  the  development  of  religious  ideas.  There  is  no 
necessary  psychological  continuity  between  the  so-called 
stages  of  religious  evolution,  such  as  fetichism,  polytheism, 
henotheism,  and  monotheism.  If  the  idea  of  a  god  is  the 
expression  of  certain  lines  of  social  development,  if  it  is  true 
that  that  idea  represents,  as  it  were,  a  moment  in  this  social 
process,  it  is  evident  that  its  meaning  must  always  be  sought 
within  the  social  plane  in  which  it  has  appeared.  The  social 
life  of  man  has  developed  along  widely  different  lines,  and 
widely  differing  generalizations  of  value  have  thus  been  pro- 
duced. One  might  almost  say,  a  priori,  that,  under  favoring 
conditions  of  social  organization  and  social  interest,  the  notion 
of  a  single  supreme  being  could  appear  upon  a  relatively 
low  plane  of  culture,  and,  further,  that  it  might  eventually 
disappear,  as  it  arose,  through  social  changes  which  would 
render  it  meaningless.  Fortunately,  we  do  find  cases  where 
something  of  this  sort  seems  to  have  taken  place,  cases  which 
would  otherwise  be  inexplicable.  Hose  and  MacDougall 
report  certain  tribes  in  the  interior  of  Borneo  which  seem  to 
have  a  belief  in  a  supreme  being,  while  the  more  highly  de- 
veloped coastal  tribes  are  polytheists.  These  investigators 
comment  as  follows:  "We  are  disposed  to  regard  this  con- 
ception as  one  that,  amid  the  perpetual  fiux  of  opinion  and 
belief  which  obtains  among  peoples  destitute  of  written  rec- 

*  For  a  statement  of  the  opposite  point  of  view  cf.  Nassau,  Fetichism  in 
West  Africa,  Chap.  Ill,  and  Trumbull,  The  Blood  Covenant. 


ETHICAL   CONCEPTIONS   OF   THE  DEITY         269 

ords,  may  be  comparatively  rapidly  and  easily  arrived  at 
under  favorable  conditions,  such  as  seem  to  be  afforded  by 
tribes  like  the  Kenyahs  and  Kayans,  warlike  prosperous 
tribes  subordinated  to  strong  chiefs,  and  may  then  remain 
as  a  vestige  only  to  be  discerned  by  curious  research  in  the 
minds  of  a  few  individuals,  as  among  the  Ibans,  or  [certain 
tribes  of]  the  Australian  blacks,  until  another  turn  in  For- 
tune's wheel,  perhaps  the  birth  of  some  overmastering  per- 
sonality or  a  revival  of  national  and  tribal  vigor,  gives  it  a 
new  period  of  life  and  power."  ^ 

We  have  already  mentioned  the  single  quasi-deity  of  the 
tribes  of  southeast  Australia  observed  by  Howitt.  As  we  have 
seen,  this  tribal  'All-father*  is,  in  the  case  of  the  Euahlayi 
tribe,^  a  genuine  deity  to  whom  prayers  are  offered,  and  who 
has  a  certain  ethical  significance  through  his  relation  to  the 
mores  of  the  tribe.  This  naive  monotheism  is,  however,  not 
indicative  of  a  higher  religious  development  than  that  possessed 
by  the  Central  Australians,  who  have  no  deistic  ideas  at  all. 
It  means  rather  that  the  religious  values  in  the  two  groups 
are  expressed  in  different  ways,  values  which  are  not  appre- 
ciably higher  in  one  case  than  in  the  other.  Thus  we  may 
say  that  it  is,  at  least,  possible  for  the  notion  of  a  single 
supreme  deity  to  appear  at  a  relatively  low  stage  of  religious 
development. 

The  essential  elements  of  a  supreme  being  are,  moreover, 
present  in  a  merely  tribal  god.  He  is  the  symbol  of  the 
most  dominating  values  in  the  tribe's  experience.  For  practi- 
cal purposes,  he  is  a  supreme  being  because  the  tribe  itself 
is  a  limit  to  the  comprehension  of  further  values.  Its  vision 
cannot  extend  beyond  itself  or  its  ancestors.    The  truth  of 

*  The  Journal  of  the  Anthropological  Institute,  Vol.  XXXI,  p.  213.  Cf. 
also  Lang,  Andrew,  The  Making  of  Religion,  1898,  Chap.  X. 

*  Parker,  The  Euahlayi  Tribe,  London,  1905,  pp.  4-10. 


270  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

this  is  well  illustrated  by  the  Arunta,  who  regard  it  as  mean- 
ingless or  absurd  to  inquire  what  happened  before  the  time 
of  the  Alcheringa,  their  ancestors.  That  is,  as  far  as  the 
psychological  attitude  is  concerned,  the  Alcheringa  symbolize 
the  infinitely  remote  past,  the  limits  of  all  that  is  conceivable. 
To  their  minds  the  notion  of  a  beyond  is  as  irrational  as  the 
notion  of  two  infinite  spaces  or  two  infinitely  powerful  deities 
would  be  to  us.  It  may  be  regarded  as  generally  true  that, 
for  the  primitive  man,  his  tribe,  together  with  what  affects  it 
for  good  or  ill,  is  a  closed  universe  beyond  which  his  thought 
cannot  penetrate.  Whatever  new  facts  force  themselves  upon 
his  attention  must  be  related  in  some  way  in  his  universe 
of  thought.  Thus  some  of  the  Australians  thought  that  the 
first  whites  they  saw  were  reincarnations  of  their  own  dead,  as 
did  also  Nassau's  West  Africans.  Whatever  the  primitive 
man  finds  to  be  friendly  to  himself  he  conceives  as  in  some 
way  his  kin  and  hence  as  a  part  of  his  group.  Whatever 
has  proved  to  be  unfriendly  is  such  because  of  the  way  in 
which  it  affects  the  group,  and  such  an  object  or  person,  also, 
thus  finds  a  place  in  the  groupal  horizon.  That  which  does 
not  affect  for  good  or  ill  lies,  of  course,  outside  of  the  pale  of 
his  value- judgments  and  is  for  him  non-existent. 

Thus  all  the  emotional  and  intellectual  elements  which  go 
to  make  up  the  attitude  toward  a  supreme  being  are  present, 
or  may  be  present,  in  the  conception  of  a  tribal  god.  Such 
a  deity  may  easily  completely  fill  the  horizon  of  his  wor- 
shippers. He  may  be  psychologically  identical  with  the  one 
infinite  God  of  some  of  the  higher  culture  religions.  It  is 
only  intellectually  that  he  may  be  recognized  as  not  all-pow- 
erful, or  as  one  among  the  gods  of  other  tribes.  The  tribe 
being  the  limit  beyond  which  the  valuational  attitude  cannot 
extend,  we  can  see  how  even  a  henotheistic  god  may  be  the 
equivalent  of  a  monotheistic  conception.     If  for  any  reason 


ETHICAL  CONCEPTIONS  OF  THE  DEITY         271 

the  tribal  limits  are  broken  down,  the  tribal  deity  may  be 
transformed,  quite  naturally,  into  one  of  a  truly  monotheistic 
type,  provided  the  attitudes,  of  which  he  is  the  expression,  are 
stable  enough  to  survive  the  shock.  The  concept  of  a  single 
god  is  then,  as  far  as  religion  is  concerned,  not  the  outcome 
of  an  intellectual  development  primarily,  or  a  hypothetical 
being  constructed  by  a  process  of  abstraction  and  observa- 
tion of  the  uniformity  of  nature. 

As  for  the  monotheism  of  the  Hebrews,  then,  it  seems  that 
it  is  not  unique,  nor  is  its  development  difficult  to  understand 
on  the  basis  of  a  broader  knowledge  of  primitive  religion. 
Semitic  scholars  of  to-day  are  quite  generally  agreed  that 
the  religion  of  Yahweh  had  its  rise  in  the  tribal  religion  of  the 
nomadic  Kenites  with  whom  the  Israelites  came  in  contact 
in  their  wanderings  in  the  peninsula  of  Sinai.^  He  was 
presented  to  them  at  a  crisis  in  their  national  development 
as  their  deliverer  and  leader.  The  Israelitish  leaders  appar- 
ently entered  into  a  covenant  with  him  that  their  people 
should  therefore  serve  him  for  all  time.  We  know  that  many 
Semitic  groups  had  tribal  deities,  and  these  were,  psycho- 
logically, supreme  deities,  as  we  have  shown  above.  Thus 
at  the  very  beginning  there  were  conditions  which  made  for 
a  higher  monotheism  in  the  worship  of  Yahweh.^ 

It  will  not  be  profitable  here  to  enter  into  the  details  of 
the  inevitable  struggle  between  the  cult  of  Yahweh  and  those 
of  Israel's  earlier  deities.  This  struggle  was  probably  less 
acute  in  the  nomadic  period  before  the  invasion  of  Canaan,^ 

^  Cf .  Budde,  The  Religion  of  Israel  to  the  Exile,  Chap.  I,  and  Robertson 
Smith,  The  Prophets  of  Israel.  For  a  concise  summary  of  the  arguments  in 
favor  of  this  view,  vide  Barton,  Semitic  Origins,  pp.  275-278. 

2  Professor  George  Adam  Smith  mentions  this  fact  but  fails  to  grasp  its  sig- 
nificance for  the  development  of  the  later  Hebrew  conception.  Cf .  Preaching 
of  the  Old  Testament,  p.  125. 

3  Ihid.f  p.  131. 


272  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

because  the  interests  and  needs  of  the  desert  found  ready 
expression  in  the  character  and  ritual  of  a  god  of  the  desert. 
Here,  then,  they  had  a  naive  monotheism  analogous  to  that 
of  the  primitive  tribes  mentioned  above.  At  least  we  may 
say  that  in  proportion  as  Yahweh  did  thus  fill  their  religious 
horizon,  he  was,  by  so  much,  a  single  supreme  god. 

When,  however,  the  Israelites  entered  Canaan  and  grad- 
ually took  up  an  agricultural  life,  they  naturally  recognized 
the  importance  of  other  deities,  especially  the  Baalim  of  the 
land,  and  there  is  no  reason  to  believe  that  they  regarded 
the  worship  of  the  new  gods  as  inconsistent  with  their  pre- 
vious greater  interest  in  Yahweh.  Probably  the  worship  of 
Baal  was  not  distinguished  by  the  people  from  worship  of 
Yahweh.  Their  mode  of  life  had  changed  and  there  came  about 
as  a  result  a  weakening  of  the  psychological  monotheism  of 
the  desert.  If  it  is  true  that  Yahweh  was  originally  a  sort  of  war- 
god,^  the  various  periods  of  conquest,  first  the  scattering  ones 
under  Joshua  and  the  Judges,  and  later  the  organized  one 
of  Saul  and  David,  served  to  keep  alive  and  to  stir  up  the 
interest  in  his  cult,  although  it  probably  did  not  raise  him  to 
where  he  could  fill  the  whole  religious  horizon.  The  agri- 
cultural interests  were  too  many  and  insistent,  and  these  could 
only  be  expressed  in  terms  of  Baal  worship.  Yahweh  was  a 
god  of  the  mountain,  of  the  desert,  and  of  war,  and  he  could  not 
be  available  for  the  exigencies  of  an  agricultural  life.  Appar- 
ently the  national  disasters,  through  foreign  invasion,  which 
later  overtook  them  served  to  arouse  the  old  interest  in  the 
Yahweh  cult,  but  even  then  only  with  a  relatively  small  number, 
the  prophets.  That  is  to  say,  the  disintegration  of  national 
life  provoked  more  or  less  of  a  reflective  attitude  in  some  of 
the  men  who  were  witnesses  to  it.  The  tradition  of  the 
ancient  victories  under  Yahweh  would  naturally  suggest  that 
*  Cf.  Budde,  op.  cU.,  pp.  26  f. 


ETHICAL  CONCEPTIONS   OF   THE  DEITY         273 

his  worship,  which  was  little  more  than  coordinate  with  that 
of  the  local  gods  of  Canaan,  should  be  revived ;  it  would  sug- 
gest that  the  very  cause  of  these  disasters  was  the  neglect  of 
the  covenant  with  the  old  war-god  of  the  desert,  and  that  the 
other  gods  might  be,  after  all,  powerless  or  even  non-exist- 
ent. Certainly  as  far  as  mere  monotheism  was  concerned, 
the  prophets  had  all  that  was  necessary  for  the  construction 
of  such  a  concept  in  the  traditions  of  the  past  and  in  the 
social  conditions  of  their  present. 

When  the  complete  dissolution  of  their  national  life  came 
about  in  the  Ass)Tian  and  Babylonian  captivity,  the  local 
deities  would,  of  course,  lose  all  significance  for  even  the 
masses  of  the  people,  and  they  must  have  thought,  as  well, 
that  Yahweh  could  no  longer  lay  claim  to  being  a  real  god, 
since  his  people  had  been  reduced  to  such  miserable  straits. 
But  it  is  not  strange  that  a  few  of  the  more  thoughtful  should 
have  interpreted  this  disaster,  not  in  terms  of  Yahweh's  un- 
reality but  in  terms  of  the  broken  covenant.  For  such  as 
took  this  view,  he  would  necessarily  emerge,  as  the  one  re- 
maining vestige  of  their  religious  life,  with  a  character  im- 
mensely enriched  through  the  fact  that  he  had  so  sternly 
punished  the  breaking  of  the  covenant.  As  Budde  says,  the 
religion  of  Yahweh  was  thus  detached  from  the  idea  of  the  con- 
tinued existence  and  prosperity  of  the  nation.  "Israel  does 
not  need  any  more  to  be  an  independent  people  in  order  to 
be  sure  of  Yahweh's  favor  and  to  enjoy  his  blessings.'*  ^ 

From  what  we  know  of  the  development  of  the  religion  of 
Yahweh,  we  may  infer  with  Robertson  Smith  that  the  mono- 
theism of  the  Hebrews  was  not  that  of  the  subjective  religious 
thought  of  to-day,  neither  was  it  the  monotheism  of  meta- 
physics.^   It  is  by  reading  modern  conceptions  back,  that  the 

1  Op.  cit.,  p.  195. 

*  The  Prophets  of  Israel,  pp.  60-63. 


274  DEVELOPMENT   OF   RELIGION 

problem  of  accounting  for  its  development  has  seemed  to 
some  insoluble  from  a  naturalistic  point  of  view.  We  have 
pointed  out  that  there  is  a  difference  between  a  psychological 
and  a  metaphysical  monotheism.  That  of  the  Hebrews  was 
largely  the  former.  If  and  so  far  as  Yahweh  filled  the  mental 
horizon  of  the  people,  or  certain  ones  of  them,  by  giving 
them  victory  over  their  enemies,  or  leading  them  through 
great  crises,  or  if  he  seemed  completely  adequate  for  the  needs 
of  any  particular  period,  then,  for  those  persons,  or  for  those 
times,  he  was  literally  the  only  god.  They  might  speak  of  the 
gods  of  Moab  or  of  Ass)n-ia,  but  the  recognition  would  be 
only  intellectual.  As  far  as  they  themselves  were  concerned, 
Yahweh  was  the  only  god.  As  Robertson  Smith  says,  it  was 
a  purely  practical  question  with  them.  The  problem  of  the 
metaphysical  existence  of  the  other  gods  did  not  present  itself. 
Absorbed  in  conflicts  with  other  nations,  they  had  no  interest 
in  the  theoretical  question  as  to  the  relation  of  these  gods 
to  reality.  The  practical  point  was  that  Yahweh  proved  him- 
self the  stronger.  In  the  terms  used  earlier  in  this  chapter, 
he  represented  to  them  all  that  seemed  worth  while,  was  the 
symbol  of  their  highest  valuations.  This  was  practical  mono- 
theism, and  it  is  the  type  in  large  measure  of  even  later 
ages. 

As  for  the  problem  of  metaphysical  monotheism,  we  cannot 
be  sure  that  it  presented  itself  even  to  the  later  prophet  who 
declared  that  the  gods  of  the  nations  had  no  existence  beyond 
their  imaged  forms,  that  they  were  simply  stocks  and  stones. 
Such  a  statement  may  have  been  made  simply  to  emphasize 
the  indefinitely  greater  reality  that  the  Hebrew  god  was  felt 
to  represent.  At  any  rate,  even  in  New  Testament  times,  and 
much  later,  these  other  deities  were  admitted  to  have  a  spiritual 
existence,  though  degraded  to  the  level  of  demons. 

To  regard  Hebrew  monotheism  as  a  metaphysical  concep- 


ETHICAL  CONCEPTIONS  OF  THE  DEITY         275 

tion  would  be  to  deprive  it  of  a  large  measure  of  its  unique 
interest.  It  is  a  much  simpler  process  for  a  speculative 
philosopher  to  arrive  at  such  a  notion  than  for  a  relatively 
large  number  of  people  to  gain  it  as  a  guiding  motif  of  life. 
The  concept  of  an  absolute  unconditioned  existence  has  been 
readily  constructed  by  many  of  the  philosophers  of  other 
religions. 

The  stand  has  been  well  taken  by  many  scholars  {e.g. 
W.  R.  Smith  and  Budde)  that  the  point  of  real  interest  in 
the  religion  of  the  Hebrews  is  that  of  the  personal  character 
of  Yahweh,  and  this  brings  us  to  a  consideration  of  how  the 
concept  of  his  character  developed  in  the  Hebrew  mind. 

In  taking  up  this  question,  we  must  bear  in  mind  that,  as 
psychologists,  we  are  in  no  wise  concerned  with  the  question 
of  whether  there  is  a  metaphysical  being  corresponding  to 
the  Hebrew  Yahweh.  In  fact,  we  must  make  the  inquiry  as  if 
there  were  no  such  being.  We  have  said  that  the  concept, 
God,  symbolizes  in  social,  and  hence  tangible  terms,  certain 
aspects  of  the  meaning  of  existence,  the  worthfulness  of  human 
endeavor,  whether  it  be  that  as  understood  by  the  savage, 
occupied  with  his  fetich  object,  or  that  conceived  by  a  civil- 
ized man  of  broad  knowledge  and  deep  insight.  That  life 
really  has  deep  and  abiding  values  will  be  admitted  by  most 
people.  But  what  they  shall  be  called,  or  in  what  terms  they 
shall  be  described,  is  largely  a  matter  of  indifference,  pro- 
vided they  are  so  conceived  that  they  enter  vitally  into  one's 
life  and  conduct.  The  whole  problem  is  one  of  practice 
rather  than  of  nomenclature.  If  there  are  values  in  life 
beyond  barely  living  the  present  moment,  how  can  they  be 
brought  into  living  relation  with  the  things  which  must  be  done 
moment  by  moment  ?  For  most  people,  the  personal  method 
of  conceiving  them  is  almost  inevitable  and  is  usually  the 
most  vital.     We  saw  in  the  preceding  chapter  how,  on  primi- 


276  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

tive  levels  of  culture,  these  higher  values  become  associated 
with  personal  agency  and  hence  with  personal  character. 

From  the  point  of  view  here  developed,  the  whole  problem 
of  the  gradual  unfolding  of  the  character  of  a  supreme  and  all- 
wise  God  in  human  consciousness  becomes  the  problem  of 
the  development  of  human  character  through  struggle  with 
nature,  through  social  intercourse,  and  especially  through  re- 
flection upon  the  conflicts  which  thus  arise.  Not  all  races 
have  been  able  to  reflect  in  any  sustained  or  fruitful  way  and 
it  is  largely  on  this  account  that  not  all  have  arrived  at  higher 
deistic  conceptions.  In  saying  this  we  do  not  mean  that  all 
deities,  high  as  well  as  low,  are  mere  copies  of  the  actual  every- 
day characters  of  their  worshippers.  To  hold  that  among 
even  the  lower  races  the  gods  are  merely  the  reflection  of  the 
debased  characters  of  the  devotees  is  to  fail  to  recognize  that 
there  is  a  reaching  out,  projective  side  to  one's  experience,  as 
well  as  a  side  of  realized  achievement.  We  are  always  con- 
scious of  there  being  more  than  we  are  able,  at  a  given  time, 
to  bring  into  actual  being.  By  this  we  mean  no  metaphysical 
something,  but  merely  that  experience  is  projective,  that  it  has 
a  direction  of  movement  as  well  as  a  body  of  accomplished  fact. 
It  is  this  projective  aspect  of  experience  which  is  developed 
and  enriched  by  reflection.  Out  of  conflict  and  discrepancy 
the  question  is  constantly  arising  in  the  mind  of  a  reflective 
man,  *  Whither  do  I  tend?'  This  reflective  enrichment  of 
experience  as  a  projective  process  {i.e,  a  process  that  is  really 
striving  and  tending  somewhere)  reacts  upon  and  interprets 
and  determines  present  attainment. 

Thus,  while  a  god  is  always  a  reflection  of  the  character  of 
his  worshippers,  we  must  remember  that  this  character  is 
never  altogether  static,  that  it  has  always  a  something  that 
may  be  termed  its  ideal  quality.  If  this  is  true  of  even  the 
savage,  with  his  crude  gods,  we  have  adequate  ground  to 


/ 


UNIVERSITY    } 

ETHICAL   CONCEPTIONS   OF   THE   DEITY         277 

account  for  the  development  of  even  the  loftiest  conception 
of  a  divine  being.^ 

Instead,  then,  of  assuming  that  a  metaphysical  being  gradu- 
ally unfolds  himself  to  mankind  and  little  by  little  brushes 
away  the  false  gods,  we  should  say  that  man,  through  reflec- 
tion upon  the  practical  problems  of  life,  especially  such  as 
grow  out  of  the  ethics  of  custom,  has  come  to  deeper  and 
more  vital  conceptions  of  values.  Now,  if  a  group  of  people 
who  are  developing  a  reflective  type  of  consciousness  are 
already  in  possession  of  an  unreflective  notion  of  a  deity,  in 
whom,  as  they  are  taught  by  tradition,  are  embodied  the 
values  expressed  in  customary  morality,  they  will  interpret  the 
results  of  their  reflection  as  new  revelations  of  the  character  of 
their  god.  Thus  Budde  says  of  Israel,  "Whenever  things 
went  badly  with  the  people,  it  was  far  from  thinking  that 
Yahweh  had  not  power  to  help.  On  the  contrary,  its  con- 
science awaked  each  time  to  the  questions :  *  Wherein  have  I 
deserved  the  displeasure  of  Yahweh  ?  What  must  I  do  to  in- 
sure a  renewal  of  His  favor  and  help?'  Thus  arose  a  really 
living  force,  whose  operation  tended  to  the  ethical  develop- 
ment of  Israel's  religion."  ^  That  such  questions  as  these, 
reflectively  raised,  should  be  productive  of  the  highest  type  of 
moral  growth  is  unquestionable.  There  is  no  reason  for  as- 
suming that  some  moral  conceptions  are  so  exalted  that  they 
cannot  have  had  a  natural  history. 

Thus,  we  would  say  that  the  character  of  Yahweh  was  built 
up  rather  than  progressively  revealed^  for  by  such  a  statement 
we  do  account  for  the  practical  fact  of  the  evolution  of  a 

*  This  is  not  equivalent  to  the  dictum  that  the  wish  has  made  the  god.  As 
Hoffding  points  out,  this  "ignores  the  complex  conditions  under  which  the 
formation  of  religious  ideas  takes  place.  ...  An  important  side  of  religious 
development  consists  precisely  in  the  quiet  influence  exerted  upon  feeling  by 
knowledge,"  i.e.  reflection,  op.  cH.,  p.  195. 

«  Op.  cit.,  p.  37. 


278  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

deity,  without  becoming  involved  in  the  insoluble  problem 
of  how  an  absolutely  complete  and  perfect  metaphysical 
being  can  possibly  ever  reveal  himself  in  crude  and  partial 
forms,  much  less  have  any  relation  to  that  which  is  finite. 
This  view  takes  nothing  from  the  practical  value  of  God  and 
has,  in  addition,  the  advantage  of  admitting  to  human  ex- 
perience a  genuine  and  positive  value  rather  than  the  pseudo 
or  mock  values,  which  are  all  that  a  metaphysics  of  *the 
absolute '  are  able  to  grant  it. 

The  higher  ethical  conception  of  Yahweh  seems  to  offer  much 
difficulty  to  students  of  the  Old  Testament.  Professor  George 
Adam  Smith,  who  may  be  taken  as  representative  of  a  large 
class,  argues  that  it  can  be  explained  only  upon  the  basis  of  a 
direct  revelation.^  His  points,  as  far  as  they  show  that  a  high 
plane  of  conscious  moral  development  cannot  be  the  direct 
outcome  of  any  particular  kind  of  political  situation  or  of  any 
particular  kind  of  mores,  have  much  weight.  He  fails,  how- 
ever, to  recognize  the  significance  of  reflection  in  the  develop- 
ment of  moral  ideas.  On  the  one  side,  Israel,  in  common 
with  kindred  tribes  and,  in  fact,  with  all  primitive  peoples, 
had  a  morality  of  custom,  limited,  of  course,  but  by  no  means 
of  negative  value.  On  the  other  side,  there  were  the  lofty 
conscious  moral  concepts  of  the  prophets,  regarded  by  them 
as  having  a  universal  validity.  What  is  the  relation,  if  any, 
of  the  one  to  the  other  ?  G.  A.  Smith  apparently  holds  that 
there  is  a  fundamental  difference  between  them  such  as  can 
only  be  explained  by  the  hypothesis  of  a  special  revelation. 

It  should  be  noted,  however,  that  the  Hebrew  prophets  were 
not  unique  in  attaining  to  a  lofty  moral  outlook  upon  life.  The 
Greek  philosophers  and  some  of  their  successors  attained  to 
concepts  as  high,  even  though  they  were  somewhat  different. 
But  the  Greeks  developed  their  concepts  abstractly  into  a 
*  Preaching  of  the  Old  Testament,  pp.  138-141. 


ETHICAL  CONCEPTIONS   OF   THE  DEITY 


philosophy  of  morah'ty,  while  the  prophets  were  primaril; 
practical  religious  teachers.  Thus  their  contributions  to 
reflective  morality,  were  always  expressed  in  terms  of  the 
national  god,  Yahweh.  ^  It  is  not  stranger  that  high-minded 
men  should  have  appeared  in  Israel  than  in  Greece,  men  who 
pondered  upon  the  events  of  their  times  and  drew  certain 
conclusions  regarding  the  worth  of  human  life  and  human  en- 
deavor. The  cases  are  not  rendered  different,  as  far  as  the 
ethical  concepts  are  concerned,  because  the  expression,  on  the 
one  hand,  was  in  terms  of  religion,  and  on  the  other,  in  terms 
of  philosophy. 

Shall  it  be  maintained  that  some  valuations  of  life  have  a 
natural  history  while  some  do  not,  that  the  evolution  of 
honesty  or  of  chastity  may  be  traced,  but  that  the  notion  of 
social  justice,  mercy,  and  love,  as  expressed  in  the  absolute 
goodness  of  God,  is  so  remote  from  complete  realization  in  the 
experience  of  even  the  best  of  men  that  it  must  therefore  have 
come  to  men  out  of  all  connection  with  experience,  i.e.  have 
been  revealed  ?  The  assumption  that  there  is  such  a  funda- 
mental difference  between  ethical  values  would  be  paradoxical 
if  it  were  not  so  common.  It  is  due  in  large  measure  to  the 
method  by  which  the  problem  is  usually  approached,  or  to  the 
unanalyzed  presuppositions  which  prevent  a  frank  facing  of 
the  problem  upon  its  own  merits.  For  instance  it  is  assumed 
that  while  the  nature  deity  is  tnerely  the  reflection  of  the  vices 
of  its  worshippers,  the  god  of  righteousness  is  not  related 
to  any  social  process,  and  must  first  have  been  intellectu- 
ally conceived  as  supremely  good  and  just.  But  this,  it  is 
maintained,  could  never  have  been,  because  there  was  nothing 
in  experience  to  furnish  the  basis  for  such  a  concept.  This 
difficulty  is  altogether  a  logical  one.  The  separation  between 
finite  and  infinite  goodness  or  love  is  not  primarily  due  to  an 

*  Cf.  Dewey  and  Tufts,  Ethics,  p.  197. 


28o  DEVELOPMENT  OF  RELIGION 

attempt  to  describe  two  types  of  reality.  It  is  merely  an  ex- 
pedient by  which  we  emphasize  to  ourselves  the  supreme 
significance  of  our  actual  efforts  along  the  line  of  goodness, 
which,  as  far  as  realization  is  concerned,  generally  seem  to 
fall  far  short  of  intention.  The  very  tendency  to  put  off  in 
a  different  sphere  our  highest  valuations  is  merely  an  a$pect 
of  the  valuating  process  itself,  and  is  no  indication  of  an  ul- 
timate difference  in  metaphysical  reality.  In  the  same  way 
we  seem  best  able  to  satisfy  ourselves  that  this  act  or  this 
person  is  of  very  great  significance  in  our  lives  by  saying  that 
it,  or  he,  is  absolutely  unique.  Such  assertions  are  not  usually 
to  be  taken  as  descriptions  of  reality,  but  only  as  attempts  to 
symbolize  the  worthfulness  which  we  feel  inheres  in  the  object 
of  consideration.  The  same  may  be  said  of  the  various  at- 
tributes with  which  the  deity  is  usually  clothed. 

We  hold,  then,  that  the  distinguishing  characteristic  of  the 
religio-ethical  ideas  of  the  later  Hebrew  prophets  is  that  they 
are  the  outcome  of  reflection  upon  contemporary  social  mores 
and  traditional  religious  concepts.  The  difficulty  with  such 
an  hypothesis,  as  over  against  the  theory  of  revelation,  is 
diminished  if  we  but  recognize,  as  we  should,  the  positive 
value  of  this  unreflective  matrix  of  religion  and  customary 
morality  with  reference  to  the  later  development.*  The 
reflective  moralist  does  not  spin  a  fabric  out  of  thin  air.  His 
work  is  rather  to  meet  the  problems  and  the  discrepancies 
which  arise  in  the  practical  workings  of  customary  morality, 
to  determine  the  real  worth  involved  and  to  reconstruct  the 
situations  so  that  this  real  worth  may  be  more  adequately 
realized.  It  will  be  important,  then,  for  an  understanding  of 
the  evolution  of  the  higher  ethical  religions  to  note  some  of  the 
specific  ways  in  which  positive  elements  are  present  in  the  non- 
reflective  stages  of  religion.  Note  first  of  all  that  the  concept 
»  Cf.  E.  B.  Tylor,  Primitive  Culture,  ist  ed..  Vol.  I,  pp.  26  f. 


ETHICAL   CONCEPTIONS   OF  THE  DEITY         281 

of  a  deity  or  deities,  as  such,  is  a  positive  factor  in  the  moral 
life.    It  is  frequently  assumed  that  the  deities  of  heathendom 
are  non-ethical,  reflecting  simply  the  everyday  social  customk^ 
of  their  worshippers.     In  a  measure  this  is  true,  but  it  is  also 
true  that,  in  so  far  as  social  custom,  with  its  inevitable  valua- 
tions, crystallizes  into  a  deity,  that  deity  does  exert  a  controlling 
influence  of  some  sort  upon  his  worshippers.     Even  though 
the  modes  of  worship  and  the  manner  of  life  associated  with 
him  be  from  every  point  of  view  debasing,  it  is,  nevertheless, 
a  prescribed  system  of  conduct.     As  a  matter  of  fact,  the 
conduct  so  prescribed  is  not  of  necessity  debasing.     It  is  well 
known  that  the  mores  of  many  of  the  natural  races  of  the 
present  contain  much  that  even  the  reflective  moralist  must 
look  upon  with  admiration.     A  deity,  then,  who  is  really 
worshipped,  is  usually  connected  with  the  customary  morality 
of  his  people,  and  in  his  character  and  will  is  to  be  found  the 
sanction  of  these  mores.    There  is  no  gap  between  the  group 
with  a  debasing  worship  and  one  which  has  a  high  standard 
of  tribal  ihorality  and  a  purer  ritual.     In  both  cases  there  is 
control  of  action  in  some  more  or  less  specific  direction.    The 
real  problem  is,  then,  that  of  determining  the  conditions  which 
have  given  rise  to  certain  ethical  concepts  and  practices  rather 
than  the  spurious  problem  of  why,  at  a  certain  stage  in  the 
evolution  of  religion,  there  was  a  transition  from  low  nature 
gods  to  a  lofty  ethical  deity  who  hates  evil  and  oppression  and 
enjoins  justice  and  purity  of  heart.     Even  the  nature  deity 
hates  evil,  i.e.  is  angered  with  those  who  do  not  properly 
comply  with  his  ritual  and  the  customs  associated  therewith. 
In  the  same  way  conscience  may  be  assumed  to  be  present 
as  one  of  the  positive  factors  of  moral  progress  in  the  religion 
of  custom  as  well  as  in  that  of  reflection.     Conscience,  on  the 
lowest  levels  of  religion,  is  psychologically  identical  with  the 
conscience  of  higher  religions.     On  the  negative  side,  wher- 


\ 


282  DEVELOPMENT  OE  RELIGION 

ever  it  is  found,  it  is  both  the  feeling  and  the  intellectual 
recognition  of  uneasiness  and  even  of  sorrow  which  arises 
when  one  has  violated  an  organized  and  admittedly  valid 
aspect  of  himself.  The  psychical  state  is  the  same,  whether 
this  violated  self  be  expressed  altogether  in  the  form  of  unre- 
flective  social  customs  or  whether  it  be  a  subjective  construc- 
tion of  the  individual  himself.  In  either  case  it  is  an  instance 
of  the  inertia  of  habit.  Boas  tells  of  how  an  Eskimo  refused 
/to  kill  his  aged  mother  at  the  beginning  of  a  hard  winter,  an 
act  dictated  and  approved  by  the  mores  of  the  tribes.  His 
/  final  action  may  be  said  to  have  been  the  resultant  of  a  con- 
flict between  that  part  of  himself  expressed  in  tribal  custom 
and  that  organized  into  parental  love.  In  so  far  as  the  first  of 
these  aspects  of  himself  was  uppermost,  he  no  doubt  felt  real 
qualms  of  conscience  in  refusing  to  kill  his  mother.  In  even 
the  most  highly  developed  religious  types  of  the  culture  races, 
matters  of  conscience  are  largely  matters  of  social  custom. 

The  positive  significance  for  higher  religion  of  the  content  of 
the  primitive  religious  consciousness  is  apparent  in  all  the  pro- 
phetic writings  of  the  Hebrews.  All  such  concepts  as  those  of 
sin,  holiness,  faithfulness  to  Yahweh,  have  definite  antecedents 
in  the  primitive  Semitic  social  life.  Take,  for  example,  the 
notion  of  sin.  It  has  frequently  been  urged  that  paganism 
and  ethical  monotheism  here  differ  fundamentally.  Among 
the  primitive  Semites,  as  with  most  natural  races,  a  sin  is  a 
''blunder  or  dereliction,  and  the  word  is  associated  with 
others  that  indicate  error,  folly,  or  want  of  skill  and  insight."  * 
In  other  words,  it  is  definitely  associated  with  the  proper 
observance  of  social  customs,  and  with  due  precautions  in 
dealing  with  all  persons,  objects,  and  places  suspected  of 
being  surcharged  with  mystic  power.  It  is  recognized  that  a 
person  may  unwittingly  break  a  regulation  of  custom  or  that 

*  Robertson  Smith,  The  Prophets  ojlsrady  pp.  102, 103. 


ETHICAL  CONCEPTIONS   OF  THE  DEITY         283 

he  may,  as  in  the  case  of  Uzzah,  instinctively  or  without  pre- 
meditation put  forth  his  hand  and  receive  a  deadly  shock 
from  a  sacred  object.  Sin,  as  thus  conceived,  does  not 
necessarily  involve  an  offence  against  God,  nor  does  it  involve 
any  reference  to  the  conscience  or  to  the  intent  of  the  sinner. 
Perhaps  the  conception  of  sin  as  merely  a  misfortune,  held  by 
the  primitive  Semites  of  to-day,^  is  fairly  representative  of  the 
earliest  form  in  which  the  idea  of  sin  appears.  But  sin  as 
unintentional  infraction,  and  hence  as  misfortune,  is  not  intrin-^'' 
sically  different  from  moral  guilt.  The  difference  may  be 
expressed  in  terms  of  the  personality  or  self  involved  in  the 
two  types.  On  the  one  hand,  the  self  is  objective,  and  its 
organization  is  identical  with  the  organization  of  the  mores 
of  the  group.  The  self  of  each  individual  in  the  group  is  so 
completely  expressed  by  the  customs  which  obtain  that  none 
can  conceive  of  himself  as  acting  otherwise  than  in  confo 
ity  to  these  customs,  unless  it  be  unwittingly.  On  the  other 
hand,  if  a  member  of  such  a  primitive  group  experiences  a 
development  of  personality  which  does  not  find  adequate 
expression  in  the  faithful  observance  of  social  custom, 
he  will  become  correspondingly  able  to  conceive  of  him- 
self as  voluntarily  acting  along  lines  other  than  those  laid 
down  by  custom.  An  infraction  of  the  mores  of  his  group 
will  no  longer  be  regarded  as  accidental,  but  as  an  incident  to 
the  attainment  of  some  private  aim.  In  proportion  as  the 
morality  of  custom  is  still  regarded  with  respect,  or  as  some- 
thing which  has  yet  an  important  place  in  his  life,  he  will  then 
experience  real  moral  guilt  in  following  out  his  individual 
purpose.  If  abstract  moral  law  or  divine  commands  take 
the  place  of  the  law  of  custom,  we  have  a  relatively  subjective 
self  substituted  for  the  objective  one  above  considered.  Here, 
again,  there  may  be  such  complete  identification  of  the  self 
*  Curtiss,  Primitive  Semitic  Religion  of  To-day,  pp.  129, 130. 


/ 


284  DEVELOPMENT   OF   RELIGION 

with  the  divine  will  that  sin  can  be  conceived  only  as  acci- 
dental, or  as  a  blunder.  Here,  also,  moral  guilt  will  be  possi- 
ble when  the  person  begins  to  realize  that  he  has  real  desires 
which  lie  counter  to  the  divine  will.  The  conception  of  sin  as 
moral  guilt  is  then  one  of  the  aspects  of  the  differentiation  of 
the  self,  and  it  may  obtain  in  primitive  as  well  as  in  ethical 
religions.  The  sense  of  sin,  as  it  appeared  in  the  prophets,  was 
not  different  in  kind,  but  only  in  degree,  from  that  which 
might  at  any  time  have  appeared  in  the  popular  religious 
consciousness  of  the  times. 

Nor  was  the  conception  of  the  holiness  of  Yahweh  unrelated 
to  the  popular  religion  of  Israel.  As  Robertson  Smith  points 
out,^  it  probably  first  appeared  in  connection  with  certain 
localities  which,  for  various  reasons,  were  regarded  with 
dread  or  circumspection,  that  is,  as  the  seat  of  some  mysterious 
power.  At  a  later  time  these  sacred  or  holy  places  were  re- 
garded as  the  abodes  of  various  spirits  or  deities.  The  fear 
or  awe  due  to  Yahweh  as  a  holy  god  was  thus  but  an  extension 
of  a  concept  quite  familiar  to  all  Semitic  peoples. 

The  relation  of  Yahweh  to  Israel  is  worked  out  by  the 
prophets  very  largely  in  the  familiar  terms  of  the  relation  of 
father  to  son,  or  of  husband  to  wife.  The  notions  of  marital 
and  filial  fidelity  must  have  had  some  place  in  the  ordinary 
thought  and  conscience  of  the  times,  or  the  figure  of  the 
prophets  could  not  have  been  understood  by  the  hearers. 
As  Barton  points  out,^  the  family  relation  occupied  a  most 
important  place  in  primitive  Semitic  society.  The  relation  of 
the  people  to  its  gods  was  frequently  expressed,  now  in  forms 
of  fatherhood,  now  in  terms  of  the  matrimonial  relation.' 

The  conception  of  the  justness  of  Yahweh  seems  to  be  re- 

'  The  Religion  of  the  Semites,  ist  ed.,  p.  149,  et  seq. 

*  Semitic  Origins,  pp.  306,  307. 

•  The  Prophets  of  Israel,  pp.  167-175. 


ETHICAL   CONCEPTIONS   OF   THE  DEITY         285 

lated  to  the  covenant  idea.  He  had  delivered  Israel  from 
Egypt  and  had  brought  them  to  a  new  land,  in  return  for 
which  service  they  agreed  henceforth  to  serve  him.  The 
covenant  with  Yahweh  was  entirely  analogous  to  those  cove- 
nants common  in  ordinary  social  life.  If  the  covenant  is 
broken  by  one  party,  the  other  may,  in  all  justice,  be  angered, 
and  seek  reparation.  Thus  the  national  misfortunes  of  Israel 
can  easily  be  interpreted  as  evidences,  not  of  Yahweh's  weak- 
ness, but  of  his  just  wrath  at  the  broken  covenant.  Faith- 
fulness to  Yahweh  as  the  sole  condition  of  prosperity  was  the 
fundamental  message  of  the  prophets.  In  what  this  faithful- 
ness consists  is  naturally  regarded  differently  by  different 
ages,  "according  to  the  different  tasks  and  dangers  which 
each  brings  with  it,"  ^  and  thus  the  reflective  religious  teachers 
of  each  age  contributed  something  to  the  development  of  the 
character  of  the  national  god.  Thus,  we  contend,  his  person- 
ality, by  which  he  was  distinguishable  from  other  gods,  was 
little  by  little  built  up,  instead  of  being  progressively  revealed 
as  a  preexisting  and  completed  metaphysical  substance. 

If  we  were  to  follow  out  this  inquiry,  we  should  find  that 
every  distinguishing  quality  of  the  ethical  conception  of  Yahweh 
as  taught  by  the  prophets  is  rooted  in  the  framework  of  con- 
cepts and  appreciations  which  had  grown  up  in  the  social  and 
religious  life  of  primitive  Israel.  Neither  on  the  side  of  mere 
monotheism  nor  of  ethical  character  is  there  any  psychologi- 
cal break.  The  transformation  of  the  fluent  psychological 
monotheism  of  popular  religion  into  an  absolute  type,  and  the 
generalization  of  the  moral  values  of  experience  and  the  state- 
ment of  them  in  terms  of  the  character  of  one  deity  is  not  a 
procedure  unique  in  the  history  of  reflective  thought,  although 
it  may  in  this  case  have  been  carried  further  and  have  had 
more  definite  and  practical  consequences. 

*  Budde,  op.  cit.,  pp.  loi,  102. 


V 


286  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

But  why,  it  may  be  asked,  did  not  a  similar  development 
occur  among  other  Semitic  peoples  ?  Even  though  we  should 
be  unable  to  give  satisfactory  reasons  for  this,  it  does  not 
follow  that  we  must  deny  to  later  Israelitish  religion  a  thor- 
oughgoing natural  history.^  We  do  not  know  completely  the 
*why'  of  any  of  the  complex  variations  in  plant  and  animal 
life,  much  less  those  which  human  life  presents.  Why  did 
the  Chinese  develop  their  peculiar  ethical  system  rather  than 
some  more  fruitful  type  such  as  that  worked  out  by  the 
Greeks  ?  What  is  the  natural  history  of  Socrates  or  of  Plato, 
of  Roman  as  over  against  Greek  religion  ?  In  none  of  these 
cases  can  anything  approaching  a  complete  answer  be  given. 
In  all  our  science,  we  must  rest  eventually  upon  the  principle 
that  our  universe  is  one  in  which  variation  rather  than  uni- 
formity is  the  rule,  and  further,  that,  if  the  antecedent  condi- 
tions of  some  simpler  variations  seem  to  be  more  or  less  open 
to  us,  there  is  no  reason  for  holding  that  the  more  striking 
variations  must  be  put  oflF  by  themselves  in  a  separate  imi- 
verse.  The  difference  between  the  religion  of  the  Hebrew 
prophets  and  that  of  kindred  Semitic  peoples  is  simply  the 
difference  that  everywhere  presents  itself  in  both  animal  life 
and  in  human  society  where  related  forms  vary  in  diverse 
ways. 

It  is  perhaps  not  necessary  to  say,  in  conclusion,  that  the 
value  of  the  ethical  monotheism  of  the  Hebrews  is  not  im- 
pugned by  the  attempt  to  work  out  its  natural  history.  The 
question  as  to  whether  these  concepts  were  valid  or  not  can  be 
answered  only  by  reference  to  their  influence  upon  the  con- 
duct of  life,  both  in  the  time  of  the  prophets  and  later. 

*  Cf.  G.  A.  Smith,  Preaching  of  the  Old  Testament,  pp.  131  f.,  wherein  it  is 
argued  that,  since  the  social  and  political  life  of  all  the  Semitic  peoples  was  so 
much  alike,  the  higher  conceptions  of  Yahweh  were  of  necessity  revelations. 


CHAPTER  XI 

RELIGION  AND  MORALS  —  WITH  SPECIAL  REFERENCE  TO   THE 
AUSTRALIANS 


It  would  be  suggestive  in  many  ways  to  take  up  the  problem 
of  the  relation  of  religion  to  morals  from  the  view-point  pre- 
sented in  the  studies  which  have  preceded.^  We  shall,  how- 
ever, discuss  here  only  one  small  phase  of  it,  illustrating  the 
point  in  some  detail  from  the  moral  status  of  one  primitive 
race,  the  aborigines  of  Australia. 

Our  view  of  the  religious  consciousness,  as  built  up  through 
social  custom  and  enriched  through  social  intercourse,  sug- 
gests a  relationship  between  religion  and  morality  that  has 
not  been  sufficiently  recognized  in  many  treatments  of  the 
subject.  Morality,  as  its  etymology  suggests,  refers  also  to  the 
customary,  and  on  this  ground  we  may  argue  with  much  as- 
surance for  the  view  that  primitive  morals  and  primitive 
religion  are  but  two  sides  of  the  same  thing.  In  every  social 
body  it  is  desirable,  and  in  fact  necessary  to  its  very  continu- 
ance as  such,  that  men  should  observe  certain  rules  of  conduct. 
"That  men  do,  however  imperfectly,  conform  to  such  rules 
....  is  the  extraordinary  and  almost  miraculous  result  of 
habit  and  prejudice."  ^  Religion,  as  a  differentiated  aspect  of 
custom,  has  always  been  associated  with  conduct  of  one  kind 

*  The  author  has  amassed  much  material  for  a  full  treatment  of  this  sub- 
ject, but  time  does  not  permit  of  working  it  out  for  the  present  volume. 
'  G.  Lowes  Dickinson,  Religion^  A  Criticism  and  a  Forecast. 

287 


288  DEVELOPMENT  OF  RELIGION 

or  another.    It  has  not  chosen  habit  as  its  ally,  nor  put  itself 

behind  a  bulwark  of  emotional  prejudice.     In  a  broad,  and 

I  not  necessarily  derogative  sense,  religion  is  these  things. 

nJ  Certain  habits  of  conduct  are  not,  to  start  with,  maintained 
by  religion;  they  are  rather  religion  in  its  most  fundamental 

V  sense.  Through  them,  as  we  have  seen,  religious  valuations 
and  the  religious  consciousness  itself  have  been  built  up.  This 
is  the  ground  both  of  the  power  of  religion  over  conduct  and 
of  the  conservatism  of  religion.  As  long  as  society  is  more  or 
less  stationary,  the  type  of  conduct  enjoined  by  religion  is 
usually  identical  with  that  demanded  by  the  moral  conscious- 
ness. But  in  social  bodies  which  have  rapidly  differentiated, 
the  requirements  of  religion  often  fall  far  below  the  current 
social  needs.  It  is  not,  however,  our  purpose  to  enter  into 
the  problem  of  why  religion  and  morals  may  thus  become 
dissociated,  nor  to  trace  all  the  subtle  interconnections  which 
persist  even  where  there  is  more  or  less  of  a  rupture  between 
them.  We  wish,  rather,  to  show  that  in  primitive  custom, 
the  basis  of  the  religious  consciousness,  there  is  a  positive 
moral  worth  which  may  furnish  the  raw  material  for  higher 
conceptions  of  conduct,  and  which  have  much  significance 
for  the  natural  history  of  morals  as  well  as  of  religion. 

II 

According  to  the  earlier  explorers  and  missionaries  and  the 
careless  travellers  of  even  recent  years,  the  morality  of  the 
Australian  aborigines  was  of  a  very  low  grade.  iVlmost  all 
such  observers  agreed  in  placing  them  in  the  very  lowest 
stages  of  culture.  They  were  described  as  bestial  in  habits, 
naked,  lacking  all  sense  of  virtue;  the  men  cruel  to  their 
children  and  wives.  They  were  said  to  be  addicted  to  infanti- 
cide and  cannibalism,  were  cruel  in  their  tastes,  shiftless,  lazy, 


RELIGION  AND   MORALS  289 

stupid,  deceitful;  in  fact,  were  possessed  of  all  conceivable 
evil  qualities;  they  were  deaf  to  the  lessons  of  religion  and 
civilization,  ready  at  theft,  and  had  almost  no  regard  for  the 
value  of  human  life.  They  were  naturally,  moreover,  given 
up  almost  constantly  to  destructive  intertribal  wars. 

The  investigations  of  more  recent  students  of  the  natural 
races  have  thrown  a  somewhat  different  light  upon  the  matter. 
It  is  now  recognized  that  morality  is  not  to  be  judged  by  rela- 
tionship to  some  fixed  and  absolute  standard,  but  rather  that 
it  is  fundamentally  related  to  the  system  of  social  control  which 
prevails  within  the  group.  It  is  consequently  unjust  to  apply 
civilized  standards  of  morality  to  such  peoples.  The  good- 
ness or  badness  of  an  act  must  be  adjudged  according  to  its 
place  within  some  social  context.  It  must,  moreover,  be  borne 
in  mind  that  the  *  higher  race,'  in  its  first  contact  with  the  lower, 
seldom  sees  it  at  its  best.  Without  doubt  the  ignorance  and 
brutality  of  many  of  the  first  white  settlers  and  explorers  of 
Australia  were  constantly  provocative  of  retaliation  on  the  part 
of  the  natives.  The  so-called  treachery  of  the  latter,  their  cun- 
ning, and  their  dishonesty  were  merely  reflexes  of  their  treat- 
ment by  the  whites.  Hence  it  is  impossible  to  judge  of  the 
morals  of  a  race  by  the  acts  produced  by  its  contact  with 
another  race.  It  may  be  admitted  that  a  savage  will  do 
many  things  that  a  civilized  man  would  not  do,  but  mere 
difference  does  not  render  either  one  or  the  other  immoral. 
The  morality  of  an  act  can  be  determined  only  when  it  is 
known  whether  it  conforms  to  the  standard  recognized  by  the 
group.  This  does  not,  of  course,  preclude  the  further  in- 
quiry as  to  whether  some  social  standards  are  relatively 
higher  than  others,  but  such  an  inquiry  lies  beyond  the  scope 
of  the  present  chapter. 

In  the  first  place,  then,  the  unfavorable  light  in  which  the 
Australian  first  appeared  is  to  be  explained  partly  by  the 


290  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

treatment  he  received  from  the  whites  and  partly  by  the 
inability  of  the  whites  to  understand  him.  Thus,  the  laziness 
of  the  native  may  be  attributed  merely  to  his  inability  to 
fall  in  with  the  enterprises  of  the  settlers,  or  to  appreciate  the 
objects  of  their  endeavor  or  their  interests.  In  activities  of 
their  own  the  natives  show  the  most  surprising  industry,  for 
example,  in  the  collection  of  food,^  the  preparation  for  and 
performance  of  their  elaborate  ceremonials.  The  observa- 
tions which  follow  should  not,  however,  be  taken  as  applying 
to  the  Australian  race  as  a  whole,  but  only  to  the  section 
directly  observed,  for  there  is  no  question  but  that  there  is 
much  diversity  in  the  customs  and  characteristics  of  different 
tribes  and  groups. 

As  to  personal  virtues,  the  natives  of  Queensland  were  said 
to  be  generally  honest  in  their  dealings  with  one  another. 
Aside  from  murder  of  a  member  of  the  same  tribe,  they  knew 
only  one  crime,  that  of  theft.  If  a  native  made  a  '  find '  of 
any  kind,  as  a  honey  tree,  and  marked  it,  it  was  thereafter 
safe  for  him,  as  far  as  his  own  tribesmen  were  concerned,  no 
matter  for  how  long  he  left  it. 

The  Australian  native  in  general  was  and  is  possessed  of 
fortitude  in  the  endurance  of  suffering  in  a  marked  degree. 
There  is  abundant  opportunity  for  the  development  of  this 
quality  of  mind  in  the  painful  ordeals  of  initiation,  a  ceremony 
which  is  always  accompanied  by  fasting  and  the  infliction  of 
bodily  mutilations  of  various  kinds,  differing  with  the  tribe  and 
the  locality.  These  mutilations  include  the  knocking  out  of 
teeth,  circumcision,  subincision,  and  various  scoriations  of  the 
trunk,  face,  and  limbs.  Among  some  of  the  tribes  there  are 
permanent  food  restrictions  imposed  by  custom  upon  different 
classes.    There  are  also  food  restrictions  imposed  upon  the 

*  Henderson,  John,  Excursions  and  Adventures  in  New  South  Wales f 
London,  1851,  p.  125. 


RELIGION  AND  MORALS  291 

youth  and  younger  men,  and  all  of  these  are  faithfully  com- 
plied with,  although  at  considerable  personal  hardship.^ 

The  food  restrictions  form  such  an  important  phase  of  ab- 
original morality  that  they  warrant  further  discussion.  The 
following  regulations  of  the  Kurnai  tribe  are  typical :  A  man 
of  this  tribe  must  give  a  certain  part  of  his  'catch'  of  game, 
and  that  the  best  part,  to  his  wife's  father.  Each  able-bodied 
man  is  under  definite  obligation  to  supply  certain  others  with 
food.  There  are  also  rules  according  to  which  game  is  divided 
among  those  hunting  together.  In  the  Mining  tribe  all  those 
in  a  hunt  share  equally,  both  men  and  women.  In  all  tribes 
certain  varieties  of  food  are  forbidden  to  women,  children,  and 
uninitiated  youths;  there  are  also  restrictions  based  upon  the 
totem  to  which  one  belongs.  The  rules  regarding  the  cutting 
up  and  cooking  of  food  are  as  rigid  as  those  regulating  that 
of  which  the  individual  may  lawfully  partake.  Howitt  says 
of  these  food  rules  and  other  similar  customs  that  they  give 
us  an  entirely  different  impression  of  the  aboriginal  character 
from  that  usually  held.  Adherence  to  the  rules  of  custom 
was  a  matter  on  which  they  were  most  conscientious.  If 
forbidden  food  were  eaten,  even  by  chance,  the  offender  has 
been  known  to  pine  away  and  shortly  die.  Contact  with  the 
whites  has  broken  down  much  of  this  primitive  tribal  morality. 

"The  oft-repeated  description  of  the  black-fellow  eating  the 
white  man's  beef  or  mutton  and  throwing  a  bone  to  his  wife, 
who  sits  behind  him,  in  fear  of  a  blow  from  his  club,  is  partly 
the  new  order  of  things  resulting  from  our  civilization  break- 
ing down  old  rules."  ^ 

Under  the  influence  of  the  food  rules,  a  certain  generosity 

'Howitt,  Native   Tribes  of  Sotdheast  Australia,  London,  1905,  p.  561; 
Fraser,  John,  The  A  borigines  0/  New  South  Wales,  Sydney,  1892,  p.  90. 
2  Howitt,  op.  cit.y  p.  684. 


2g3 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  RELIGION 


of  character  was  fostered,  and  unquestionably  it  was  present 
in  the  blacks  to  a  marked  degree.  He  was  accustomed  to  share 
his  food  and  possessions,  as  far  as  he  had  any,  with  his  fellows. 

"It  may  be,  of  course,  objected  to  this  that  in  so  doing  he  is 
only  following  an  old-established  custom,  the  breaking  of 
which  would  expose  him  to  harsh  treatment  and  to  being 
looked  upon  as  a  churlish  fellow.  It  will,  however,  hardly  be 
denied  that,  as  this  custom  expresses  the  idea  that  in  this  par- 
ticular matter  every  one  is  supposed  to  act  in  a  kindly  way 
towards  certain  individuals,  the  very  existence  of  such  a 
custom  .  .  .  shows  that  the  native  is  alive  to  the  fact  that  an 
action  which  benefits  some  one  else  is  worthy  of  being  per- 
formed." ' 

The  apparent  absence  of  any  excessive  manifestations  of 
appreciation  or  gratitude  in  the  black-fellow  has  been  inter- 
preted by  some  adversely.  But  giving ^  as  far  as  the  natives 
were  concerned,  was  such  a  fixed  habit  that  gratitude  did  not 
seem  to  be  expected.  It  does  not  necessarily  follow  that  they 
could  not  feel  gratitude  because  they  did  not  show  any  sign 
of  it  to  the  white  man  when  he  bestowed  upon  them  some 
paltry  presents,  for,  as  Spencer  and  Gillen  point  out,  they 
might  not  feel  that  they  had  reason  to  be  grateful  to  him  who 
had  encroached  upon  their  water  and  game  and  yet  did  not 
permit  them  a  like  hunting  of  his  own  cattle. 

Although  as  a  rule  perfectly  nude,  they  are  said  to  have  been 
modest  before  contact  with  the  whites.'  Of  the  north  Austra- 
lians, we  are  told  that  the  women  were  never  indecent  in 
gesture,  their  attitude  being  rather  one  of  unconsciousness.'' 

*  Spencer  and  Gillen,  The  Native  Tribes  of  Central  Australia,  p.  48. 
'  Lumholtz,  Carl,  Among  Cannibals,  N.Y.,  1889,  p.  345. 

•  Creed,  J.  M.,  "The  position  of  the  Australian  aborigines  in  the  scale  of 
human  intelligence,"  The  Nineteenth  Century  and  After,  Vol.  57, 1905,  p.  89. 


RELIGION   AND   MORALS  293 

The  low  regard  for  chastity  reported  by  some  observers  may, 
in  part,  be  explained  by  the  failure  of  the  outsider  to  under- 
stand their  peculiar  marriage  customs,  on  account  of  which  the 
relation  of  the  sexes  is  to  be  judged  by  different  criteria  than 
with  ourselves.  Spencer  and  Gillen,  the  most  recent  and  the 
most  scientific  of  all  who  have  studied  this  race,  say  of  the 
central  tribes  that  chastity  is  a  term  to  be  applied  to  the  relation 
of  one  group  to  another  rather  than  to  the  relation  of  individu- 
als. Thus,  men  of  one  group  have  more  or  less  free  access  to 
all  the  women  of  a  certain  other  group.  Within  the  rules  pre- 
scribed by  custom,  breach  of  marital  relations  was  severely 
punished.  No  one  would  think  of  having  sexual  relations 
with  one  in  a  class  forbidden  to  himself  or  to  those  of  his  own 
class.  It  would  thus  appear  that,  within  the  bounds  of  their 
own  customs,  they  were  extremely  upright.  When,  under 
certain  conditions,  chiefly  ceremonial,  wives  were  loaned,  it 
was  always  to  those  belonging  to  the  group  within  which  the 
woman  might  lawfully  marry.*  Among  the  natives  of  north 
central  Queensland  a  competent  observer  ^  holds  that  there  is 
no  evidence  of  the  practice  of  masturbation  or  of  prostitution. 
The  camp  as  a  body  punished  incest  and  promiscuity.  Howitt, 
writing  of  the  natives  of  southeastern  Australia,  says  that  the 
complicated  marriage  restrictions  expressed  in  a  very  definite 
way  their  sense  of  proper  tribal  morality.  Here,  also,  looseness 
of  sexual  relations  was  punished,  although  at  certain  times  it 
was  proper  to  exchange  wives,  and  at  other  times  there  was  un- 
restricted license  among  those  who  were  permitted  to  marry.' 
Of  the  treatment  of  wives  and  children  there  are  conflicting 
reports,  the  more  recent  investigators  holding  that  there  was 

'See  also  Cameron,  Journal  Anthropological  Institute,  Vol.  14,  p.  353. 
'Roth,  Ethnological  Studies  among  the  Northwest  Central  Queensland 
Aborigines  (1897),  p.  184. 
•  Fraser,  op.  cU. 


294  DEVELOPMENT   OF  RELIGION 

less  cruelty  than  was  at  first  represented.  There  was,  however, 
doubtless  much  difference  in  this  respect  in  different  tribes. 
One  early  observer  ^  affirms  that  wives  were  always  secured  by 
force,  the  girl  being  seized  from  ambush,  beaten  until  senseless, 
and  thus  carried  off  by  her  *  lover, '  Others,  in  like  manner, 
emphasize  the  brutality  of  obtaining  wives.^  Lumholtz  says 
that  stealing  was  and  is  the  most  common  method.  The 
researches  of  Spencer  and  Gillen  do  not  confirm  these  state- 
ments as  far  as  the  natives  of  central  Australia  are  concerned, 
while  Roth  refers  to  the  commonness  of  the  practice  of  stealing 
wives  and  eloping  among  the  north  central  Queensland  natives. 
According  to  Spencer  and  Gillen,  wives  may  have  been  so 
secured,  but  such  was  assuredly  not  the  customary  method 
in  central  Australia,  at  least.  They  know  of  no  instances  of 
girls  being  beaten  and  dragged  away  by  suitors.  It  is  prob- 
able that  cases  of  exceptional  cruelty  more  easily  came  to  the 
notice  of  the  first  travellers,  and  they  inferred  that  such  cases 
were  characteristic.  The  last-named  authors  affirm  that  the 
method  of  securing  wives  among  these  tribes  was  definitely 
fixed  by  tribal  usage  and  involved  no  cruel  practices  whatso- 
ever. Howitt,  the  authority  upon  the  southeastern  tribes, 
says  that  cruelty  was  often  practised  upon  elopers,  but  this  is 
manifestly  because  they  had  themselves  been  guilty  of  breach 
of  tribal  morality.  Looseness  of  sexual  relations  among  these 
tribes  originally  always  met  with  severe  punishment. 

As  to  treatment  of  wives  among  the  central  tribes,'  there 
were  undoubtedly  cases  of  cruelty,  but  they  were  the  excep- 
tion rather  than  the  rule.  The  savage  husband  has  a  hasty 
temper,  and  in  a  passion  might  act  harshly,  while  at  other  times 

*  Earp,  G.  B.,  Gold  Colonies  in  Australia,  London,  1852,  p.  127. 
'  Angas,  G.  F.,  Savage  Life  and  Scenes  in  Australia  and  New  Zealand, 
London,  1850,  p.  225. 

'  Spencer  and  Gillen,  Native  Tribes  of  Central  Australia,  p.  51. 


RELIGION  AND   MORALS  295 

he  might  be  quite  considerate  of  his  wife.  Among  the  abo- 
rigines of  the  Darling  River,  New  South  Wales,  quarrels 
between  husband  and  wife  were  said  to  be  quite  rare,^  and 
Smith  says  that  love  is  not  rare  in  Australian  families,  while 
another  observer^  says  that  the  life  of  the  women  is  hard,  and 
that  they  are  much  abused  by  their  husbands.  Dawson,  who 
wrote  expressly  to  show  that  the  Australian  blacks  had  been 
misrepresented,  maintained  that  in  Victoria  at  least  there  was 
no  want  of  affection  between  members  of  a  family.'  Lum- 
holtz  ^  holds  that  the  Queensland  husband  felt  little  respon- 
sibility for  his  family,  that  he  was  really  selfish,  and  hunted 
only  for  sport,  often  consuming  the  game  as  caught,  bringing 
nothing  home.  The  same  author  refers  to  one  case  of  a  wife 
being  terribly  beaten  because  she  refused,  one  cold  night,  to 
go  out  and  get  fuel  for  the  husband.  Over  against  this  testi- 
mony we  have  that  of  Spencer  and  Gillen,  referred  to  above, 
that  the  husband  was  ordinarily  by  no  means  cruel.  In  hard 
seasons  men  and  women  suffered  alike.  A  woman,  however, 
suspected  of  breach  of  marital  relations,  was  treated  with  re- 
volting severity.  They  point  out  that  many  things  which  to 
us  seem  harsh  were  by  no  means  so  in  their  eyes,  and  that 
the  savage  woman  recovers  easily  from  wounds  that  to  a 
civilized  woman  would  entail  the  greatest  suffering.  Treat- 
ment which  we  should  naturally  think  cruel  was  to  them 
merely  rough  and  in  conformity  with  the  rest  of  their  life. 
Howitt^  says  that  among  the  Kurnai  tribe  family  duties  were 
shared  by  husband  and  wife,  each  performing  an  allotted  part 

^  Bonney,  F.,  "The  Aborigines  of  the  river  Darling,"  Journal  of  Anthropo- 
logical Institute,  Vol.  13,  pp.  122  £f. 

2  Smyth,  R.  B.,  Aborigines  of  Victoria,  and  Palmer,  Journal  of  the  Anthrop- 
ological Institute,  Vol.  13,  pp.  302  ff. 

*  Dawson,  J.,  Australian  Aborigines,  1881,  p.  37. 

*  Lumholtz,  op.  cit.,  pp.  161  flf.  , 
»  Op.  cit.,  p.  738. 


296  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

toward  the  support  of  the  family.  The  man's  duty  was  to  fight 
and  hunt,  the  woman's  to  build  the  home,  catch  the  fish  and 
cook  them,  gather  vegetable  foods,  make  baskets,  bags,  and 
nets. 

With  reference  to  their  children,  much  affection  was 
usually  shown,  and  this  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  abortion  and 
infanticide  were  practised  in  many  localities.^  In  this  connec- 
tion Howitt  says,  "...  they  [the  Mining  tribes]  are  very  fond 
of  their  offspring  and  very  indulgent  to  those  they  keep,  rarely 
striking  them, "  a  mother  often  giving  all  the  food  she  had  to  her 
children,  going  hungry  herself.  Infanticide  was  by  no  means 
so  unrestricted,  or  as  indicative  of  cruelty  of  nature  and  lack  of 
parental  affection  as  is  implied  by  Mackenzie,  writing  in  the 
year  1852.^  Among  the  north  central  tribes  ^  infanticide  was 
practised,  but  only  upon  rare  occasions,  at  any  other  time  than 
immediately  after  birth,  and  when  the  mother  thought  she  was 
unable  to  care  for  the  babe.  The  killing  of  the  new-born  child 
was  thus  an  effort  at  kindness  on  their  part,  and  to  them  was 
certainly  devoid  of  cruelty,  since  they  believed  the  spirit  part 
went  back  to  the  spot  whence  it  came,  and  was  subsequently 
born  again  to  the  same  woman.  Twins  were  killed  as  un- 
natural, a  practice  to  be  explained  in  part  by  the  natives'  dread 
of  everything  imcommon  or  rare.  On  infrequent  occasions  a 
young  child  of  a  few  years  was  killed  that  an  older  but  weaker 
child  might  eat  it  and  thus  get  its  strength.  Howitt  mentions  the 
same  practice  among  the  southeastern  natives.*  He  also  says 
that  in  some  places  infants  were  eaten  in  especially  hard  sum- 
mers. Sometimes,  also,  after  the  family  consisted  of  three  or 
four,  all  additional  children  were  killed  because  they  would 

*  E.g.  in  northwestern  central  Queensland,  Roth,  p.  183 ;  and  among  the 
southeastern  tribes,  Howitt,  pp.  748  ff. 

'Vide  Ten  Years  in  Australia,  p.  130. 

'  Spencer  and  Gillen,  Northern  Tribes,  p.  608. 

*  Op.  cU.,  p.  749. 


RELIGION  AND  MORALS  297 

make  more  work  than  the  women  could  manage.  Among  the 
Kurnai,  infanticide  imquestionably  arose  through  the  difficulty 
of  carrying  a  baby  when  there  were  other  young  children,  some 
of  whom  might  be  unable  to  walk.  Infants,  under  these  cir- 
cumstances, were  simply  left  behind  when  they  were  on  the 
march,  it  not  being  regarded  as  killing  to  dispose  of  them 
in  this  way.*  Palmer ,2  writing  of  the  natives  of  Queensland, 
says  that  the  killing  of  a  new-born  child  was  lightly  regarded, 
but  not  common.  On  the  lower  Flinders  River  the  fondness 
of  the  natives  for  their  children  was  noted.  Spencer  and 
Gillen  say  that,  with  rare  exceptions,  children  were  kindly 
and  considerately  treated,  the  men  and  women  alike  sharing 
the  care  of  them  on  the  march  and  seeing  that  they  got  their 
proper  share  of  food.  Howitt  mentions  the  case  of  a  mother 
watching  a  sick  child,  refusing  all  food,  and,  when  it  died, 
being  inconsolable.'  One  woman  for  nineteen  years  carried 
about  a  deformed  child  on  her  back.*  Natural  affection  was 
certainly  keen,  and  much  grief  was  manifested  over  the  loss  of 
children. 

In  the  aborigines'  treatment  of  the  old  and  infirm  most 
observers  depict  them  in  quite  a  favorable  light.  Dawson,  it 
is  true,  reports  that  the  natives  of  Victoria  killed  them,  but 
this  was  certainly  not  a  widely  prevalent  custom.  Lumholtz  ^ 
says  that  the  Queenslanders  were  very  considerate  of  all  who 
were  sick,  old,  or  infirm,  not  killing  them  as  with  some  savage 
peoples."  In  northern  parts  of  Australia  there  were  many 
blind,  and  they  were  always  well  cared  for  by  the  tribe,  being 
often  the  best  fed  and  nourished.^  In  the  central  tribes  the  old 
and  infirm  were  never  allowed  to  starve.  Each  able-bodied 
adult  was  assigned  certain  of  the  older  people  to  provide  with 

>  Ihid.,  p.  750.  '  Op.  cU.  '  IMd.,  p.  766. 

*  Fraser,  op.  cit.,  Henderson,  op.  cU.f  p.  121.  •  Op.  cit.,  183. 

•  Cf .  Bonney,  op.  cii.,  p.  135.  '  Creed,  op.  cU.,  p.  91. 


298  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

food,  and  the  duty  was  fulfilled  cheerfully  and  ungrudgingly.* 
In  some  tribes  the  old  and  sick  were  carried  about  on  stretch- 
ers. In  the  Dalebura  tribe  a  woman,  a  cripple  from  birth, 
was  carried  about  by  the  tribes-people  in  turn  until  her  death, 
at  the  age  of  sixty-six.  On  one  occasion  they  rushed  into 
a  stream  to  save  from  drowning  an  old  woman  whose  death 
would  have  been  a  relief  even  to  herself.  Fraser  emphasizes 
the  respect  in  which  old  age  was  held  by  the  aborigines  of  New 
South  Wales,  and  the  fact  that  they  never  desert  the  sick.^ 

Cannibalism  among  the  Australian  blacks  was  by  no  means 
a  promiscuous  and  regular  practice,  as  was  at  first  supposed. 
It  is  true,  Lumholtz  says  of  those  observed  by  him,  that  human 
flesh  was  regarded  as  a  great  delicacy.^  Palmer,*  writing  of 
Queensland  also,  says  that  cannibalism  was  practised  to  a 
certain  extent,  in  some  sections  those  killed  in  fights  being 
eaten,  and  often  children  who  had  died.  An  early  writer 
reports  that  in  South  Australia  bodies  of  friends  were  eaten  on 
their  death  as  a  token  of  regard.^  Spencer  and  Gillen  found 
difficulty  in  gathering  evidence  of  its  being  practised  among 
the  central  tribes.  They  were  often  told  by  one  tribe  that  it 
was  customary  among  others  who  lived  farther  on,  they  in 
turn  saying  the  same  thing  of  those  beyond  themselves.  They 
think,  in  general,  that  human  flesh  was  eaten  as  a  matter  of 
ceremony  or  at  least  for  other  than  mere  food  reasons.  They 
found  much  more  evidence  of  it  among  the  northern  tribes. 
Howitt  says  the  Dieri  tribe  practised  cannibalism  as  a  part  of 
the  burial  ceremonies,  that  it  was  a  sign  of  sorrow  for  the  dead. 
Among  others  only  enemies  slain  on  their  raids  were  eaten; 

*  Spencer  and  Gillen,  Northern  Tribes,  p.  32. 
» Cf.  Smith,  op.  cit. 

'  See  also  Bicknell,  Travel  and  Adventure  in  North  Queensland,  London, 
189s,  p.  104,  who  holds  it  was  quite  common. 

*  Op.  cit. 

"  Angas,  p.  225 ;  Eraser,  p.  56,  as  a  sign  of  regard  or  in  ceremonial. 


RELIGION  AND   MORALS  299 

the  Kurnai,  for  instance,  would  not  eat  one  of  their  own  tribe. 
Among  still  other  tribes,  if  a  man  were  killed  at  initiation  cere- 
monies, he  was  eaten,  as  also  any  one  killed  in  one  of  the  cere- 
monial fights,  and  others  again  did  not  eat  their  enemies. 
Howitt  is  positive  that  there  is  no  such  thing  among  any  thus 
far  observed  as  propitiatory  human  sacrifice,  and  he  denies 
emphatically  the  statement  made  current  by  some  that  some- 
times a  fat  gin  (woman)  was  killed  to  appease  their  craving 
for  flesh  when  they  chanced  to  have  been  long  upon  a  vegetable 
diet.  He  also  says  that  at  the  tribal  meetings  of  the  Bunya, 
men,  women,  and  children,  killed  in  fights  or  by  accident, 
were  eaten,  but  that  there  is  no  evidence  that  women  and 
children  were  killed  for  cannibalistic  purposes. 

The  morality  of  the  Australian  native  was,  in  a  word,  the 
morality  of  tribal  custom,  and,  if  fidelity  to  duties  so  imposed 
may  be  taken  as  a  criterion,  it  was  of  no  low  order.  Recent 
investigators  unite  in  testifying  that  the  black-fellow,  espe- 
cially before  contact  with  Europeans,  was  most  scrupulous  in 
his  obedience  to  the  sacred  duties  imposed  upon  him  by  tribal 
usage.     Of  the  Queensland  natives  Roth  says ;  ^  — 

"The  life  of  the  tribe  as  a  whole  seemed  to  be  well  regu- 
lated. Custom,  with  the  old  men  as  its  exponents,  was  the 
only  law.  Where  there  were  few  old  men,  each  individual, 
within  limits,  could  do  as  he  pleased." 

Howitt  writes  of  the  tribes  studied  by  him  that  custom 
regulated  the  placing  of  huts  in  the  camp,  and  even  the  proper 
position  of  individuals  within  the  huts.  In  the  Kaiabara  tribe 
single  men  and  women  lived  on  opposite  sides  of  the  camp. 
The  old  women  kept  an  ever-watchful  eye  upon  the  young  peo- 
ple to  prevent  improprieties.  In  another  tribe  the  women  could 
not  come  to  the  camp  by  the  same  path  as  the  men,  a  violation 
1  Op.  cU.,  pp.  139  ff. 


300  DEVELOPMENT  OF  RELIGION 

of  the  rule  being  punishable  by  death.  The  law  of  custom 
thus  controlled  almost  every  phase  of  the  life  of  the  individual, 
including  many  personal  matters  as  well  as  conduct  toward 
others;  the  intercourse  of  the  sexes  is  or  was  most  definitely 
limited  and  regulated;  the  women  who  were  eligible  to  each 
man  in  marriage  were  also  rigidly  determined  by  custom, 
as  well  as  the  proprieties  of  conduct  toward  the  wife's  family. 
Reference  has  already  been  made  to  the  severe  restrictions 
entailed  by  the  initiation  and  other  ceremonies,  and  also  to  the 
minute  regulations  regarding  the  choice  of  food.  In  all  cases 
these  customs  were  enforced  by  severe  penalties.  In  some 
tribes  the  local  group  or  camp  united  to  punish  any  member 
who  was  guilty  of  overstepping  these  bounds  as  well  as  com- 
plicity in  more  serious  crimes,  such  as  incest,  murder,  or  the 
promiscuous  use  of  fighting  implements  within  the  camp. 
Most  customs  were,  however,  probably  obeyed  from  habit, 
the  native  being  educated  from  infancy  in  the  belief  that 
infraction  of  custom  would  produce  many  evils,  such  as  pre- 
mature grayness,  pestilence,  and  even  cosmic  catastrophes. 
In  fact,  among  the  tribes  observed  by  Howitt,  authority  was 
generally  impersonal,  though  not  always,  for  the  headmen 
were  often  men  of  great  personal  ability  and  were  greatly 
feared  and  respected  by  the  rest  of  the  tribe  or  group.* 

Questions  of  right  and  wrong  for  the  Australians  seem  to 
have  centred  chiefly  about  food  restrictions,  secrets  relating 
to  the  tribal  ceremonies,  the  sacred  objects  and  wives.  Moral 
precepts  probably  originated  in  association  with  the  purely 
selfish  idea  of  the  older  men  to  keep  all  the  best  things  for 
themselves.^  In  this  way  at  least  may  be  explained  many  of 
the  regulations  regarding  what  the  younger  men  might  eat.  So 
also  as  to  marriage,  for  aside  from  restrictions  as  to  totem  and 

^  Howitt,  op.  cit.,  pp.  296-300. 

2  Spencer  and  Gillen,  Northern  Tribes^  etc.,  p.  504. 


RELIGION  AND   MORALS 


301 


class  into  which  a  man  might  marry,  all  the  younger  women  were 
reserved  by  the  old  men,  the  less  desirable  ones,  alone,  being 
available  to  the  young  men.  But,  granting  the  selfish  character 
of  many  of  the  rules,  there  was  still  a  certain  amount  of  moral- 
ity which  transcended  anything  of  this  sort.  The  old  men  in 
their  leisure  "  instructed  the  younger  ones  in  the  laws  of  the 
tribe,  impressing  on  them  modesty  of  behavior  and  propriety 
of  conduct  .  .  .  and  pointing  out  to  them  the  heinousness  of 
incest. "  *  The  rigid  duties  of  manhood  centred  especially  in 
the  ceremonies  of  the  tribe.  The  obligations  which  these  in- 
volved were  regarded  as  extremely  sacred  and  inviolate.  "  As 
he  [the  youth]  grows  older,  he  takes  an  increasing  share  in  these 
[ceremonies],  until  fijially  this  side  of  his  life  occupies  by  far 
the  greater  part  of  his  thoughts."^  He  must  continually 
show  strength  of  character,  ability  to  endure  hardship,  to  keep 
secrets,  and,  in  general,  to  break  away  from  the  frivolity  of 
youth  and  all  that  savored  of  femininity.  There  were,  among 
the  central  tribes,  certain  sacred  things  which  were  only  gradu- 
ally revealed  by  the  older  men,  and  if  a  young  man  showed 
little  self-restraint  and  was  given  to  foolish  chattering,  it  might 
be  many  years  before  he  learned  all  that  was  in  store  for  him. 
It  is  interesting  to  learn  that  under  the  traditional  regime 
the  Australian  natives  lived  a  harmonious  and  certainly  far 
from  unhappy  life.  Fraser  says  they  were  a  merry  race.^  How- 
itt,  who  was  instrumental  in  gathering  together  the  Kurnai 
tribe  for  the  revival  of  their  initiation  ceremonies  some  years 
ago,  reports  that  the  people  lived  for  a  week  in  the  manner  of 
their  old  lives,  and  that  the  time  passed  without  a  single  quar- 
rel or  dispute.*  In  their  wild  state  the  Dalebra  tribe  were 
noted  to  have  lived  most  peaceably;  e.g.  a  camp  of  three 
hundred  is  known  to  have  continued  for  three  months  without 

^  Howitt,  op.  ciL,  p.  300.  2  Spencer  and  Gillen,  op.  cU.,  p.  33. 

'  Op.  cit.,  p.  43.  *  Op.  cU.,  p.  777. 


302  DEVELOPMENT  OF  RELIGION 

a  quarrel.  Their  method  of  settling  disputes  was  usually  by 
means  of  a  fight  between  the  parties  who  were  at  odds.  When 
blood  was  drawn,  the  fighting  ceased,  and  all  were  henceforth 
good  friends.^  They  were  generous  in  fighting,  taking  no  un- 
fair advantage.  They  loved  ease,  and  were  not  quarrelsome, 
but  were  nevertheless  ready  to  fight.^  Mortal  wounds  in  such 
conflicts  were  rare.'  Spencer  and  Gillen  likewise  say  of  the 
central  tribes  that  whenever  compensation  in  any  form  had 
been  made  by  an  offending  party,  the  matter  was  ended  and 
no  ill-will  was  cherished.* 

In  some  tribes  theft  was  regarded  as  the  greatest  crime, 
aside  from  the  murder  of  a  fellow-tribesman.  As  there  was  so 
little  private  property,  however,  crimes  arising  from  this  source 
were  rare.  The  stealing  of  women  is  said  to  have  been  the 
most  common  cause  of  intertribal  trouble.''  There  were  no 
fights  for  superiority,  no  suppression  of  one  tribe  by  another. 
Within  the  tribe  there  was,  in  large  measure,  absolute  equality. 
There  were  no  rich  or  poor,  age  being  the  only  quality  that 
gave  preeminence.®  The  intertribal  fights  were  certainly  not 
so  serious  as  some  have  represented.  That  they  were  con- 
stantly attacking  and  trying  to  exterminate  one  another  is  not 
confirmed  by  those  who  have  known  them  best.  Their  fights 
were  probably  half  ceremonial  or  of  a  sportive  character,  and 
they  were  usually  stopped  when  blood  flowed  freely. 

They  imdoubtedly  did  fear  strangers,  and  a  man  from  a 
strange  tribe,  imless  accredited  as  a  sacred  messenger,  would 
be  speared  at  once.^  On  the  other  hand,  delegations  from 
distant  tribes  were  received  and  treated  with  the  utmost  kind- 


'  Dawson,  op.  cit.,  p.  76.  *  Smith,  op.  cU.,  p.  30. 

'Lumholtz,  op.  cit.,  p.  126.  *  Op.  cit.,  p.  31. 

*  Lumholtz,  p.  126;  Spencer  and  Gillen,  Northern  Tribes,  p.  31. 

•  Semon,  R.,  In  the  Australian  Bush,  London,  1898,  p.  225. 
'  Spencer  and  Gillen,  Northern  Tribes,  p.  31. 


RELIGION  AND   MORALS 


3^3 


ness  if  they  came  in  the  recognized  way.    They  were  even  per- 
mitted to  take  a  prominent  part  in  the  ceremonies  of  their  hosts. 

The  relations  subsisting  between  members  of  the  same  tribe 
or  group  were,  according  to  Spencer  and  Gillen,  marked  by 
consideration  and  kindness.  There  were  occasional  acts 
of  cruelty,  but  most  of  them  can  be  attributed  to  something 
else  than  a  harshness  of  character.  Thus,  much  crueltyi  . 
resulted  from  their  belief  in  magic.^  The  revolting  cere- 
monies practised  at  initiation  were  all  matters  of  ancient 
tribal  custom,  and  hence  cast  little  reflection  upon  the  real 
disposition  of  the  native. 

All  things  considered,  we  are  obliged  to  say  that  their  life 
was  moral  in  a  high  degree,  when  judged  by  their  own  social 
standards,  and  not  even  according  to  our  standards  are  they 
to  be  regarded  as  altogether  wanting  in  the  higher  attributes 
of  character.  Dawson  holds  that,  aside  from  their  low  regard 
for  human  life,  they  compared  favorably  with  Europeans  on 
all  points  of  morality.    Howitt  says :  ^  — 

"All  those  who  have  had  to  do  with  the  native  race  in  its 
primitive  state  will  agree  with  me  that  there  are  men  in  the 
tribes  who  have  tried  to  live  up  to  the  standard  of  tribal 
morality,  and  who  were  faithful  friends  and  true  to  their 
word;  in  fact,  men  for  whom,  although  savages,  one  must 
feel  a  kindly  respect.  Such  men  are  not  to  be  found  in  the 
later  generation. ''  * 

III 

This  evidence  as  to  the  moral  status  of  the  Australian 
aborigines    is    of   particular    interest    because    they   have 

^  Native  Tribes,  p.  48.  '  Op.  cit.,  p.  639. 

'  As  many  of  the  accounts  refer  to  tribes,  or  at  least  to  customs,  which 
are  practically  extinct,  it  seems  best  to  use  the  past  tense  consistently 
throughout. 


304 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  RELIGION 


usually  been  classed  as  the  lowest  of  savage  races.  These 
facts  have  not  been  presented  with  a  view  to  proving  that 
they  may  lay  claim  to  a  higher  station,  but  rather  to  show 
how  primitive  are  the  beginnings  of  those  types  of  excel- 
lence characteristic  of  the  higher  stages  of  religion  and 
morals.  These  unreflective  types  of  behavior,  upon  many 
of  which  we  can  look  only  with  admiration,  are  the  raw 
material  of  reflective  ethics  as  well  as  the  basis  upon  which 
those  higher  conceptions  of  conduct  sanctioned  by  religion 
are  constructed.  In  fact,  it  is  safe  to  say  that,  in  the  case 
of  religion  at  least,  the  love  of  justice,  mercy,  and  human 
kindliness  in  general  would  never  have  developed  as  the 
expression  of  the  will  of  a  deity  except  as  they  appeared  in 
the  social  relations  of  human  life.  As  we  have  pointed  out 
in  another  chapter,  much  of  the  difficulty  experienced  by 
many  people  in  conceiving  of  an  evolution  of  the  higher 
ethical  religions  has  been  due  to  the  fact  that  they  have 
never  taken  into  account  the  positive  value  of  much  that 
may  be  found  in  the  customary  life  of  primitive  groups. 

The  life  of  the  Australians  contains  many  admirable  quali- 
ties, and  perhaps,  as  a  whole,  it  is  best  adapted  to  the  sum 
total  of  conditions  under  which  these  people  lived  before 
contact  with  the  white  race.  We  must  say  this  even  of  the 
practice  of  cannibalism  and  of  the  rules  regarding  marriage 
and  the  general  relation  of  the  sexes,  customs  so  abhorrent 
to  the  ethical  sensibilities  of  the  white  race.  Of  course  we 
must  admit  that  many  of  these  practices  are  incompatible 
with  that  type  of  social  life  that  has  developed  among  our- 
selves. But  that  they  were  degrading,  and  hence  evil  for  the 
Australians,  is  a  proposition  not  so  easily  disposed  of. 

It  is  to  be  noted,  however,  that  in  the  case  of  some  races 
this  primitive  ethos  has  been  transferred  to  new  conditions 
and  to  types  of  social  life  changed  in  many  respects  from  that 


RELIGION  AND   MORALS  305 

in  which  the  customs  took  their  rise.  The  incompatibility  of 
the  old  and  the  new  produces,  in  time,  the  reflective  moralist, 
who  attempts  a  reconstruction  of  old  values  to  suit  new  con- 
ditions. But  religion,  just  because  it  is  unreflective  and  be- 
cause its  valuations  are  intimately  associated  with  these  same 
ancient  customs,  tends  to  cling  to  them  more  tenaciously. 
Hence  we  have  frequently  the  extraordinary  condition  of  low 
types  of  conduct  condemned  by  moral  teachers,  but  persisting 
and  sanctioned  by  religion. 

As  we  have  said,  however,  the  fact  that  higher  religions 
have,  in  the  main,  come  to  a  consciousness  of  higher  types 
of  behavior,  is  in  large  measure  dependent  upon  the  actual 
presence  in  primitive  ethos  of  all  the  fundamental  human 
virtues. 


CHAPTER   XII 

APPARENT  RELATION   OF  RELIGION   TO  THE   PATHOLOGICAL 
IN   MENTAL   LIFE 

In  the  previous  chapters  of  this  book  our  attention  has  been 
concentrated  in  the  main  upon  the  method  by  which  religious 
types  of  valuation  and  religious  concepts  have  been  built  up 
in  men's  minds.  We  have  had  little  to  say  of  these  values  and 
concepts  as  mere  mental  states,  nor  have  we  considered  their 
status  in  the  general  mental  economy;  to  certain  phases  of 
this  problem  we  shall  now  turn. 

Many  recent  writers  on  the  psychology  of  religion  have 
laid  so  much  stress  upon  relatively  pathological  phenomena 
as  to  suggest  that  the  religious  consciousness  is  more  or 
less  intrinsically  psychopathic.  James,  near  the  close  of 
his  Varieties  of  Religious  Experience,  a  volume  devoted  largely 
to  unusual  if  not  pathological  types  of  religion  (because,  as 
he  says,  such  varieties  of  religion  may  be  expected  to  throw 
valuable  light  upon  ^he  more  usual  types,  p.  22),  suggests 
that  in  experiences  of  this  type  may  be  the  very  essence  of 
religion.  "We  cannot,"  in  his  words,  "avoid  the  conclusion 
that  in  religion  we  have  a  department  of  human  nature  with 
I  unusually  close  relations  to  the  transmarginal  or  subliminal 
iregion. ''  This  region  is  "  the  fountainhead  of  much  that  feeds 
our  religion.  In  persons  deep  in  the  religious  life,  as  we  have 
now  abundantly  seen,  and  this  is  my  conclusion,  the  door  into 
this  region  seems  unusually  wide  open;  at  any  rate,  experi- 
ences, making  their  entrance  through  that  door,  have  had 
emphatic  influence  in  shaping  religious  history."  *    It  is  this 

*  Varieties,  etc.,  pp.  483,  484. 
306 


RELIGION  AND  THE  PATHOLOGICAL  307 

apparent  relationship  between  religion  and  the  unusual,  or 
even  pathological,  phases  of  mental  and  motor  processes,  that 
we  wish  to  examine  in  this  chapter. 

The  problem  is  beset  with  many  difficulties.  Upon  the  one 
hand,  there  is  the  great  complexity  of  the  religious  attitude 
itself  and  the  absolute  impossibility  of  giving  it  any  definite 
delimitations.  Upon  the  other  hand,  the  line  of  demarcation 
between  the  normal  and  the  pathological  can  never  be  drawn 
except  approximately.  At  best  it  is  a  shifting  one.  In  the 
case  of  certain  supposedly  pathological  mental  phenomena, 
we  must  ever  be  uncertain  whether  they  may  not  be  really 
the  manifestations  of  a  healthful  mind,  and  whether  it  may 
not  be  our  own  view  that  is  perverted  or  partial. 

In  human  society  generally,  the  individual  who  varies 
widely  in  physical  appearance,  actions,  ideas,  or  morals 
from  what  is  customary  in  his  social  group  is  almost  inevi- 
tably regarded  as  pathological.  So  he  may  be,  but  there 
is  always  the  possibility  that  he  may  be  a  quite  healthful 
variation.  The  early  prophets  of  Israel,  for  instance,  were 
probably  persons  distinguished  by  unusual  if  not  abnormal 
experiences.  In  all  likelihood  their  importance  in  the  eyes  of 
their  contemporaries  was  due  more  largely  to  their  strange 
aberrations  than  to  any  important  messages  they  were  able  to 
deliver.  In  the  case  of  the  later  prophets,  the  strange,  ecstatic 
experiences  persisted  in  all  likelihood  to  some  extent,  but  the 
messages  they  delivered  were  by  far  the  most  important  con- 
tribution to  the  life  of  their  times,  and  yet,  even  so,  they  were 
regarded  as  essentially  'possessed'  persons,  as  fools,  or  as 
insane.  Now  this  reputation  for  mental  deviation  was  cer- 
tainly not  due  merely  to  their  occasional  visions  or  other  un- 
usual experiences;  it  was  probably  in  much  larger  measure 
due  to  the  fact  that  their  teaching  departed  so  widely  from 
accepted  usages  and  beliefs.    Thus  we  must  not  regard  a 


308  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

man  as  actually  pathological,  in  the  sense  of  being  diseased 
mentally,  because  he  is  so  regarded  by  his  contemporaries. 

There  is  still  another  difficulty  to  a  satisfactory  consideration 
of  this  subject  that  should  be  noted,  and  that  is  the  general 
tendency  for  all  people  to  consider  those  experiences  as  patho- 
logical which  cannot  be  clearly  defined  in  intellectual  terms. 
The  emotional  side  of  experience  cannot  be  so  defined,  and  in 
some  of  its  intenser  phases  it  departs  so  far  from  anything  that 
can  be  accurately  described  in  the  categories  of  ordinary 
experience,  that  it  is  assumed  to  be  pathological.  Thus  the 
experiences  of  the  mystic,  his  ecstasies  and  exaltations,  are  no 
doubt  very  difficult  to  describe  in  ordinary  direct  language. 
There  is  a  richness  of  meaning  and  a  fulness  of  reality  about 
them  that  defies  description,  and  the  mystic,  almost  inevitably, 
drops  into  some  sort  of  symbolism  which  seems  so  extrava- 
gant to  the  ordinary  man  that  he  at  once  brands  the  expres- 
sions as  those  of  an  unbalanced  mind.^ 

Nevertheless,  although  there  are  no  criteria  of  the  patho- 
logical that  can  be  regarded  as  final,  there  are  many  psychical 
and  motor  processes  that  are  at  least  out  of  the  ordinary,  and 
some  of  them  may  with  all  propriety  be  called  evidences  of 
a  diseased  personality.  It  would  perhaps  be  better  to  state 
the  problem  of  this  chapter  as  that  of  determining  the  extent 
to  which  the  religious  attitude  is  necessarily  productive  of,  or 
related  to,  unusual  experiences  and  unusual  motor  activities. 
When  the  term  "pathological"  is  used,  it  will  have  the  broad 
connotation  of  the  unusual,  and  we  shall  not  feel  that  it  is 
necessary  to  commit  ourselves  on  the  point  of  whether  the 
phenomenon  in  question  is  actually  the  product  of  diseased 
conditions  or  not. 

In  all  types  of  religion,  from  the  crudest  to  the  most  refined 

*  Cf.  Frank  Granger,  The  Soul  of  a  Christian,  and  Rufus  Jones,  Studies  in 
Mystical  Religion,  London,  1909,  Introduction. 


RELIGION  AND  THE   PATHOLOGICAL  309 

and  spiritual,  we  find  an  abundance  of  these  unusual  mental 
and  motor  phenomena.  In  one  form  or  another  they  will  be 
familiar  to  all  who  read  these  pages,  and  they  need  not,  there- 
fore, be  enumerated  or  classified  here  at  any  length.  Almost 
all  religions  S5mibolize  their  values,  as  we  have  seen,  in  terms 
of  higher  powers  of  some  sort.  These  symbols  are,  in  almost 
every  case,  taken  by  those  who  feel  these  values  to  be  de- 
scriptions of  reality  on  a  par  with  the  ordinary  concepts  which 
we  apply  to  the  physical  world.  That  is,  the  spirit  or  deity 
is  thought  to  exist  in  just  the  same  way  as  the  desk  at  which 
I  sit  exists,  and  just  as  physical  objects  can,  under  certain  con- 
ditions, cooperate  to  produce  striking  occurrences  of  various 
kinds,  so  the  beings  and  forces  symbolizing  the  values  of  the 
religious  consciousness  are  supposed  to  be  capable  of  doing 
various  things  beyond  the  power  of  man  and  at  variance  with 
the  way  things  ordinarily  happen.  Now  the  particular  point 
we  wish  to  make  here  is  that  the  unusual,  if  not  pathological, 
phenomena  to  which  all  religions  can  point  are  regarded  by 
them  as  the  evidences  and  proofs  of  the  reality  or  validity  of 
the  system  of  values  which  each  has  built  up. 

In  the  cruder  levels  of  culture,  dreams,  visions,  and  ecstatic 
experiences  are  almost  always  given  a  religious  meaning  or  in  | 
some  way  play  into  the  current  type  of  religious  concepts.  Nor 
have  higher  religions  been  free  from  such  interpretations.^ 
At  various  times  and  among  almost  every  people  the  sexual 
passions  and  the  love  of  cruelty  have  been  given  full  license 
under  the  sanction  of  religion.  It  is  not  merely  in  primitive 
phallic  religions  that  sexuality  has  played  its  part.  It  has' 
appeared  throughout  the  history  of  religion  down  unto  the 
very  present,  as  witness  the  spiritual  marriages  of  the  Mor- 
mons and  other  sects,  or  the  open  teaching  of  free  love  of 

^  Cf .  G.  B.  Cutten,  The  Psychological  Phenomena  of  Christianityj  Chaps, 
IV,  VI,  VII. 


3IO  DEVELOPMENT   OF   RELIGION 

still  other  modern  religious  groups.  But  phenomena  of  the 
sort  referred  to  in  this  paragraph  have  been  so  fully  dis- 
cussed by  other  writers  that  we  need  not  take  them  up  again, 
and  indeed  we  have  nothing  to  add  to  the  very  acute  psy- 
chological analysis  of  such  experiences  and  manifestations 
as  have  been  made  by  others.*  For  the  same  reasons  we 
shall  not  here  attempt  to  discuss  the  mystic,  with  his  divine 
revelations,  his  visions,  auditions,  exaltations,  penances,  all 
of  which  have  been  an  important  figtire  in  the  history  of  re- 
ligion.^ We  shall  also  pass  by  the  consideration  of  the  waves 
of  religious  persecution,  and  the  religious  manias,  of  which 
there  have  been  almost  every  conceivable  type,  such  as  the 
crusades  and  the  crucifixion  sects  (prominent  in  Europe  in 
even  the  nineteenth  century,  whose  adherents  thought  that 
religious  perfection  could  be  obtained  only  by  imitating  every 
detail  in  the  reputed  life  of  Christ,  even  to  the  extent  of  dying 
nailed  to  a  cross.  Stoll,  op.  ciL),  Neither  can  we  here  discuss 
the  varied  phenomena  of  camp-meeting  and  revival,  all  of 
which  have  been  fully  treated  by  others.^  All  of  these  matters 
form  a  larg'e  and  distinct  phase  of  religious  expression,  and 
they  require  a  separate  treatment  under  the  pathology  of  re- 

/  *  See  interesting  illustrations  in  StoU's  Suggestion  und  Hypnotismus  in  der 
Vdlkerpsychologie,  Cutten,  op.  cit..  Chap.  XXIX,  "Sexuality,"  Davenport, 
Primitive  Traits  in  Religious  Revivals,  Chap.  VI,  "The  Scotch-Irish  revival 
in  Kentucky  in  1800,"  et  seq.  Also  the  Journal  of  Religious  Psychology  and 
Education,  Vol.  Ill,  "Religion  and  sensualism  as  connected  by  clergymen," 
T.  Schroeder. 

'  For  a  sympathetic  and  yet  acute  discussion  of  Mysticism,  James,  op.  cit., 
is  of  course  unsurpassed.  Other  discussions  which  attempt  to  analyze  the 
mystical  experience  more  minutely  and  most  suggestively  are :  "  Tendances 
fundamentals  des  mystiques  chr^tiens,"  Revue  Philosophique,  Vol.  LIV 
(1902),  pp.  1-36;  441-487;  Murisier,  Les  maladies  du  sentiment  religieux, 
Paris,  1901 ;  Delacroix,  Etudes  d'histoire  et  de  psychologic  du  mysticism,  Paris, 
1908 ;  Granger,  Soul  of  the  Christian,  is  also  suggestive ;  Rufus  Jones,  Studies 
in  Mystical  Religion,  especially  the  Introduction. 

» E.g.  Davenport,  op.  cit. 


RELIGION   AND   THE   PATHOLOGICAL  311 

ligion.  So  much  has  been  written  upon  them  that  we  may 
quite  properly  confine  ourselves  entirely  to  the  question  of 
the  significance  of  such  phenomena  (granting  that  they  have 
existed  and  do  exist)  for  the  development  of  religious  values, 
or  possibly  first  of  all  to  the  question  of  why  so  many  ex- 
cesses of  this  sort  have  constantly  appeared  in  connection 
with  the  development  of  the  religious  valuational  conscious- 
ness. 

It  will  be  objected,  no  doubt,  that  many  of  the  occurrences 
cited  are  not  the  expressions  of  genuine  religion.  It  is  not, 
however,  in  the  province  of  psychology,  or  of  any  science,  for 
that  matter,  to  establish  norms  of  religious  genuineness.  As 
far  as  psychology  is  concerned,  all  religions  are  genuine,  and  all 
the  extravagances  that  might  be  mentioned  are  real  expressions 
of  actual  types  of  the  religious  attitude.  Of  course,  if  the 
religious  attitude  is  taken  as  something  separate  and  apart 
from  the  rest  of  the  human  consciousness,  a  special  faculty 
for  perceiving  and  adjusting  one's  self  to  a  divine  order  of 
existence,  then  all  these  things  are  either  perversions  or  be- 
smirchings  of  its  purity  by  external  agencies.  If,  however, 
the  religious  attitude  may  be  properly  described  as  an  organi- 
zation of  those  elements  of  personality  with  reference  to  the 
fuller  appreciation  of  certain  values  which  develop  within  the 
experience  of  that  person,  it  must  always  be  considered  as 
definitely  related  to  the  rest  of  the  manifestations  of  personal- 
ity, not  colored  by  them,  but  one  of  them;  one  of  the  modes, 
among  others,  by  which  the  person  expresses  himself.  The 
expressions  which  a  person  makes  of  himself,  the  values  which 
he  seems  to  have  developed  in  his  life,  may  seem  quite  crude 
according  to  the  standard  which  another  person  supposes  to 
be  absolute.  But  the  crudity  is  simply  that  of  the  rest  of 
the  person's  experience.  The  values  one  feels  are  the  values 
of  his  own  experience.    It  will  never  be  proper  to  refer  to 


312  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

them  as  merely  approximations  of  the  values  of  a  broader  or 
supposedly  absolute  experience. 

When,  therefore,  a  doubt  is  raised  as  to  whether  a  particular 
extravagance  is  related  to  genuine  religion  or  not,  it  is  sufficient 
to  answer  that,  at  any  rate,  it  has  occurred  under  the  sanction 
of  something  that  professed  to  be  religion,  and  that  it  is  not 
possible  to  classify  the  expressions  of  religion  as  true  and  false, 
although  we  may  say  that  some  religious  valuations  are  higher 
than  others.  If  there  is  any  fairly  constant  quality  that  be- 
longs to  the  religious  attitude,  as  it  has  appeared  at  dififerent 
times  and  among  different  people,  it  would  seem  that  there 
must  be  something  about  it  that  tends,  other  conditions  favor- 
ing, to  produce  just  such  unusual  if  not  pathological  mental 
and  motor  phenomena.  In  fine,  it  is  not  legitimate  to  attribute 
all  of  religion's  questionable  concomitants  to  some  outside 
force  such  as  the  devil.  In  some  of  the  great  revivals  of  the 
past,  when  unusual  manifestations  were  rampant,  these  were 
interpreted  at  first  as  the  natural  evidences  of  the  power  of 
God  working  upon  men.  When,  however,  the  manifestations 
became  excessive  and  grotesque,  it  was  said  that  Satan  had 
stepped  in  and  was  imitating  the  work  of  grace  to  discredit  it. 
"It  was  originally  wholly  from  God;  it  is  now  partly  so  still, 
but  Satan  is  now  responsible  for  a  share  —  in  Leslie  Stephen's 
phrase  of  comment  —  *  a  singular  cooperation  between  God 
and  the  devil'"  ' 

To  return  to  our  problem,  then,  is  there  anything  in  the 
nature  of  the  religious  attitude  itself,  with  all  its  protean 
forms,  which  has  tended  to  foster  unusual  mental  and 
motor  phenomena  or  which  has  in  some  way  laid  the 
religionist  open  to  possibilities  of  the  sort?  And  finally, 
is  this  aspect  of  religion  mere  pathology,  or  has  it  con- 

*  Davenport,  op.  cit.,  pp.  i74f.;  quotation  from  L.  Stephen, /owrwo/,  Vol, 
II,  p.  49- 


RELIGION  AND   THE   PATHOLOGICAL 


3^3 


tributed  in  any  positive  way  to  the  development  of  higher 
types  of  religious  valuation  ? 

As  regards  the  first  question,^  there  are  two  aspects  of  the 
attitude  we  are  considering  that  may  conceivably  be  produc- 
tive of  unusual  experiences :  first,  the  nature  of  religious  val- 
ues themselves ;  and  secondly,  the  hypothesis  of  some  sort  of 
supernaturalism  which  is  usually  associated  with  religious 
valuation. 

The  very  fact  that  religion  deals  with  values  that  are  to  be 
appreciated  rather  than  logically  formulated,  and  the  very 
fact  that  these  values  represent  either  the  individual's  or  the 
social  group's  conception  of  its  most  vital  needs  and  its  ulti- 
mate well-being,  whether  in  the  present  or  in  the  future,  causes 
them  to  become  powerful  excitants  of  the  imagination  and  of 
the  emotions.  Esthetic  values,  which,  may  often  be  associated 
with  the  religious,  have  an  analogous  but  usually  less  power- 
ful influence,  partly  because  they  are  not  associated  in  any  in- 
timate way  with  one's  ultimate  well-being,  and  partly  because 
they  lack  the  powerful  reenforcement  of  social  suggestion. 
Religious  values  are,  as  we  have  seen,  essentially  social  prod- 
ucts, and  they  usually  come  most  vividly  to  consciousness  in  a 
social  milieu  of  some  sort.  The  curious  experiences  and  the 
almost  incredible  motor  automatisms  of  those  who  celebrate 
religious  festivals  and  dances,  or  which  are  common  among 
those  who  gather  at  revivals  and  camp-meetings,  simply  to 
mention  a  few  typical  social  situations,  are  all  illustrations  of 
the  extent  to  which  mutual  suggestion  exercised  by  the  mem- 
bers of  a  group  may  augment,  if  not  actually  produce,  intense 
reactions  to  the  valuations  proposed  by  religion.  Given,  then, 
valuations  of  life  and  concepts  of  the  religious  type,  and 
given  a  social  group  whose  members  are  conscious  of  these 
things  with  varying  intensity,  and  we  have  the  conditions  for 

*  The  second  question  will  be  discussed  in  the  latter  part  of  this  chapter. 


314 


DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 


experiences  and  reactions  that  may  easily  attain  a  degree  of 
intensity  which  will  render  them  pathological. 

It  was  stated  above  that  the  hypothesis  in  most  religions 
of  some  sort  of  supernaturalism  has  been  a  second  cause  of 
the  frequent  occurrence  of  unusual  manifestations.  In  the 
preceding  chapters  the  place  of  social  activities  of  various 
kinds  in  the  building  up  of  religious  valuations  has  been  so 
much  emphasized  that  it  may  not  be  entirely  clear  how  super- 
naturalism  is  related  to  the  process.  A  slight  digression  will 
therefore  be  necessary  in  order  to  clear  the  way  for  what  we 
wish  to  present  next. 

Religious  values  and  needs  are,  as  we  have  seen,  a  possible 
outcome  of  the  various  processes  of  social  activity  which  are 
aroused  by  all  sorts  of  objects  of  general  interest  and  con- 
cern. These  objects  may  be  economic.  Thus,  in  those  re- 
gions where  the  procuring  of  food  is  necessarily  accompanied 
with  some  foresight  and  effort,  that  process,  in  all  its  details, 
tends  to  excite  the  attention  of  the  group  as  a  body.  Times  of 
seeding  and  harvest  are  naturally  important  in  some  regions, 
and  the  emotional  stress  of  such  periods^  will  be  great  in 
proportion  as  much  uncertainty  attends  the  results  and  in 
proportion  as  failure  means  disaster  to  the  group.  We  have 
given  illustrations  of  the  large  numbers  of  accessory  activities 
which  may  originate  in  such  times  of  anxious  attention, 
acts  which  express  the  intensity  of  the  feeling  and  actually 
serve  to  increase  this  feeling.  Thus,  it  may  be  truly  said  that 
these  relatively  spontaneous  and  unevaluated  social  reactions, 
whether  they  be  practical  or  accessory,  that  is,  the  result  of 
mere  emotional  overflow,  give  the  object  of  attention  individ- 
uality and  importance  and  build  up  about  it  systems  of  con- 
scious appreciations.     Among  other  occasions  which  naturally 

*  Cf .  the  elaborate  ceremonies  attending  the  planting  and  harvesting  of  the 
rice  crop  among  the  Malays,  Skeat,  Malay  Magic. 


RELIGION  AND  THE   PATHOLOGICAL  315 

interest  primitive  social  communities  are  those  of  birth, 
the  attainment  of  maturity,  marriage,  and  death.  So  also 
with  physical  objects  of  unusual  size  or  shape,  or  such  as 
possess  dangerous  qualities.  In  all  cases  it  should  be  borne 
in  mind  that  the  occasion  which  excites  attention,  i.e.  the 
strange  and  unusual  object  or  phenomenon,  is^r^^  recognized 
because  it  seems  to  have  a  close  connection  with  some  of  the 
already  existing  activities  of  the  individual  or  of  the  group. 
Thus  a  certain  South  African  tribe  saw  a  large  and  otherwise 
remarkable  rock  in  the  vicinity  at  the  time  of  their  winning 
an  unexpected  victory  over  a  much-feared  enemy.  They  at 
once  concluded  that  the  rock  contained  a  'power,'  or  spirit, 
of  some  sort,  and  it  became  for  them,  henceforth,  an  object 
of  worship.  If  the  course  of  events  had  presented  nothing 
out  of  the  ordinary,  it  is  more  than  likely  that  the  stone  would 
have  remained  unnoticed.  It  is  often  said  that  for  the  savage 
the  idea  of  the  supernatural  has  its  rise  in  that  which  appears 
to  him  in  some  way  unusual.  Whatever  occurs  regularly 
does  not  ordinarily  excite  his  attention.  Thus,  in  most  cases, 
it  is  not  the  regular  rising  and  setting  of  the  sun,  but  the 
eclipse  that  is  an  evidence  of  some  superior  power.  This 
is  all  true,  but  it  is  important  to  remember  that  these  things 
attract  the  savage  because  of  the  part  they  appear  to  play 
in  something  he  is  occupied  in  doing. 

Primitive  man's  first  concern  is  not,  then,  with  supernatural 
powers,  but  with  the  doing  of  certain  things,  and  the  concept 
of  a  force  beyond  himself  enters  his  mind  in  connection  with 
the  unexpected  thwarting  or  furthering  of  his  active  interests. 
It  does  not  develop  as  a  separate  object  of  interest,  but  rather 
as  a  possible  phase  or  element  in  all  his  interests.  It  will 
therefore  play  a  part  in  determining  the  development  of  his 
systems  of  activity  in  the  various  situations  of  life  which  con- 
cern him  and  upon  the  basis  of  which  his  religious  conscious- 


3i6  DEVELOPMENT  OF  RELIGION 

ness  is  built  up.  In  this  way,  then,  the  concept  of  superior 
or  supernatural  powers  becomes  a  factor  in  the  development 
of  religious  values. 

From  the  account  we  have  given,  it  may  be  seen  that  these 
values  are  not,  as  they  are  often  seemingly  represented, 
mere  detached  states  of  adoration  or  of  fear  aroused  by  a 
general  sense  of  mystery  in  nature;  they  have  a  definite 
background  of  social  activity  which  has  itself  been  the  condi- 
tion of  man's  first  noticing  unusual  things  and  the  condition 
of  his  supposition  of  a  power  superior  to  his  own.  So  much, 
then,  for  the  development  of  this  concept  and  its  connection 
with  religion. 

Now,  among  the  various  performances,  both  individual 
and  collective,  which  are  excited  in  connection  with  the 
different  objects  and  occasions  mentioned  above,  there  are 
some  acts  which  are  more  or  less  pathological,  or  at  least 
unusual.  These  acts  or  experiences  are  not  induced  in  people 
by  priests  or  rulers  in  order  to  retain  their  power  over  them. 
All  people,  under  appropriate  conditions,  are  more  or  less 
subject  to  them.  Possibly  primitive  man  was  more  suggestible 
than  modern  man,  more  easily  thrown  into  abnormal  men- 
tal conditions.^  The  conditions  of  his  existence  were  quite 
precarious,  and  he  probably  never  attained  entire  emotional 
stability.  Many  of  the  forms  of  social  activity  within  the 
primitive  group,  as  dancing,  or  other  mimes,  we  know  from 
observation  of  natural  races  of  to-day,  are  frequently  pro- 
ductive of  trances  and  ecstatic  states  with  accompanying 
motor  automatisms  which  have  a  startling  effect  upon  the 
mind  of  the  savage.  All  such  strange  occurrences  as  these 
just  mentioned,  as  well  as  visions  and  dreams,  the  speaking 
with  tongues,  and  the  hearing  of  voices,  are  readily  interpreted 
by  him  as  incursions  of  some  higher  power  into  the  customary 
*  Davenport  takes  this  view;  cf.  Primitive  Traits,  etc.,  Chap.  I. 


RELIGION  AND   THE  PATHOLOGICAL  317 

order  of  his  life.  It  is  in  this  way  that  these  pathological 
phenomena  acquire  a  religious  significance  and  become  incor- 
porated in  the  recognized  religious  activities  of  the  group. 
Just  because  they  occur  in  connection  with  the  things  the 
group  is  interested  in  doing  do  they  attract  attention  and 
acquire  religious  meanings.  Because  they  have  these  mean- 
ings they  are  sought  after  and  cultivated,  that  is  to  say,  one  of 
the  objects  of  religious  activity  is  to  get  into  rapport  with  this 
*  power '  which  shows  itself  in  a  person  who  has  an  imusual 
experience. 

No  phase  of  human  thought  has  prevailed  more  widely  or 
has  been  more  persistent  than  that  concerning  spirits  and 
spirit  activity.*  Taking  its  rise  in  the  wonder  of  the  savage 
in  the  presence  of  occurrences  which  seemed  to  concern  him, 
and  which  he  yet  knew  not  how  to  explain,  it  has  developed 
with  a  momentum  of  its  own  into  a  sort  of  world  philosophy, 
appearing,  with  variations,  in  all  ages  and  in  all  grades  of 
culture.  As  we  have  suggested,  whether  it  postulates  merely 
a  semi-mechanical  force  such  as  manitou  or  wakonda,  a  force 
working  in  and  through  natural  objects,  and  yet  in  some 
way  separable  from  them,  or  whether  it  presumes  definite 
and  individualized  spirit  beings  or  even  deities,  this  quasi- 
philosophy  tends  to  accentuate,  if  not  actually  to  produce 
in  men,  unusual  and  perhaps  pathological  conditions  of 
consciousness  and  behavior.  The  'power,'  spirit,  or  god 
is  something  essentially  mysterious,  something  incapable  of 
being  definitely  reckoned  with.  It  is  a  means  through  which 
things  that  transcend  ordinary  or  natural  human  powers 
may  be  brought  to  pass.    It  is  thus  associated  in  a  peculiar 

*  Vide  Tylor,  Primitive  CuUure,  which  treats  exhaustively  this  primitive 
belief  in  all  its  phases.  It  is  possible  that  part  of  what  Tylor  treats  as  spiritism 
may  be  really  phases  of  the  vague  belief  in  a  mystic  potency.  See  the  earlier 
chapter  upon  this  subject. 


3l8  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

way  with  the  projective  aspects  of  experience.*  Inasmuch 
as  the  supernatural  power,  however  it  be  conceived,  is  felt 
to  be  a  very  real,  though  relatively  indeterminate,  quantity, 
with  great  influence  for  both  good  and  ill,  its  capacity  to  excite 
the  imagination,  to  stir  up  the  emotions,  and  set  going  all  sorts 
of  activities  is  well-nigh  unlimited.  If  a  person  believes  he  has 
been  in  rapport  with  it  when  in  a  state  of  unusual  mental 
excitation,  he  will  naturally  tend  to  cultivate  such  states  in 
order  to  realize  more  fully  those  life-values  which  religion 
has  built  up  for  him,  and  which  have  become  associated 
with  the  manifestation  of  higher  powers.  Thus  we  have  the 
Algonkin  Indian  boy  going  into  the  woods  alone  to  fast  until 
j  he  shall  obtain  a  vision  of  his  manitou;  thus  also  the  bands  of 
/  early  Hebrew  prophets,  as  well  as  similar  persons  of  other  peo- 
ples, worked  themselves  into  a  frenzied  state  through  music  and 
dancing,  in  order  that  they  might  communicate  with  Yahweh. 
Likewise  the  mediaeval  Christian  ascetic,  through  fasting  and 
self-inflicted  tortures  of  the  most  refined  type,  sought  a  vision, 
or  an  ecstatic  state,  or  an  experience  even  of  a  voluptuous 
sort  through  that  close  contact  with  God  he  supposed  he 
thus  attained.  Likewise  the  modern  Protestant  revivalist  or 
other  devotee  seeks  by  much  concentration  of  thought  and 
vehemence  in  prayer  to  obtain  the  communion  or  assistance 
of  a  supernatural  potency,  the  Holy  Spirit.  In  all  such  cases, 
and  others  as  well,  that  might  be  mentioned,  the  motives  and 
ends  of  the  seekers  may  well  be  of  the  highest  character, 
but  they,  one  and  all,  attempt  to  accomplish  them  under 
what  may  be  called  the  inevitable  spell  of  a  primitive  phi- 
losophy or  a  naive  mode  of  thought.  One  and  all  have  in 
some  form  the  notion  of  superior  powers  of  some  sort  that 
may  have  great  influence  in  determining  man's  well-being 

*  For  an  explanation  and  discussion  of  this  point  the  reader  is  referred  to 
page  276,  Chapter  X,  "The  problem  of  monotheism,"  etc. 


RELIGION  AND  THE  PATHOLOGICAL 


319 


either  now  or  hereafter.  In  one  form  or  another,  all  believe 
what  is  of  everyday  occurrence  is  in  some  way  insignificant 
or  trivial  or  without  ultimate  value  for  life,  while  what  is 
unusual,  exceptional,  or  transcending  known  laws  is  of  much 
significance  and  possibly  of  the  highest  value. 

In  comment  upon  these  things,  we  may  say  that  the  reli- 
gious attitude,  which  expresses  in  a  way  the  fervor,  the  aspira- 
tion of  the  human  mind,  may  find  embodiment  in  some  sort  of 
supernaturalism,  but  the  supernaturalism  is  not  the  cause  of 
the  attitude,  nor  can  it  be  used  to  prove  its  validity.  It  is 
merely  a  symbol,  which  becomes  something  crass  and  even 
absurd  when  it  is  offered  as  a  proof  of  the  aspiration  it  sym- 
bolizes. The  occurrences  which,  to  the  savage  mind,  are 
evidences  of  the  reality  of  superior  powers  have  little  by 
little  been  found  to  fit  into  the  natural  order  of  things,  and  it 
is  the  same  with  all  the  strange  experiences  of  the  religious 
mind  even  to  this  day.  The  only  conclusion  is  that  if  reli- 
gious values  depend  absolutely  upon  the  reality  of  a  super- 
natural so  conceived,  those  values  must  soon  cease  to  exist 
for  many  well-informed  persons. 

We  have  now  arrived  at  the  point  where  we  may  profitably 
discuss  the  place  as  well  as  the  limitation  of  the  so-called 
subconscious  factors  in  the  religious  consciousness.  As 
James  points  out,  in  the  passage  quoted  at  the  beginning 
of  this  chapter,  for  the  religious  mind,  the  door  into  the  sub- 
liminal regions  of  the  mind  seems  to  be  more  or  less  ajar. 
The  striking  experiences  of  the  religious  consciousness  of  all  | 
ages  are  shown  in  these  studies  of  James  to  be  largely  thej| 
outcome  of  unusual  subconscious  activity.  Primitive  man,  as 
we  have  seen,  not  being  acquainted  with  the  theory  of  the 
subliminal,  regarded  them  as  the  manifestations  of  superior 
powers  of  some  sort.  And  James,  as  is  well  known,  suggests 
that  this  aspect  of  mental  process  may  really  open  the  mind 


320  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

\ 

to  powers  above  ourselves,  thus  apparently  lending  the  weight 
of  modern  psychology  to  the  primitive  conception  of  the  rela- 
tion of  the  human  to  the  divine. 

It  is  not  our  purpose,  nor  is  it  necessary,  to  enter  here  into 
a  criticism  of  this  hypothesis.^  We  wish  merely  to  get  the 
setting  of  the  idea.  It  appears,  as  we  say,  under  the  guise 
of  modern  science,  to  be  identical  with  the  primitive  notion 
that  whatever  is  unusual  is  caused  by  supernatural  forces. 
Now,  while  all  the  presuppositions  of  science  are  against  the 
savage  view,  and  while  modern  psychology  claims  to  be  able 
to  account  for  all  these  strange  happenings  without  recourse 
to  forces  outside  of  nature,  we  need  not  here  be  dogmatic 
in  our  assertions  for  or  against,  for  our  particular  problem 
lies  in  another  direction.  There  are  two  related  questions 
which  have  not,  to  our  knowledge,  received  adequate  con- 
sideration thus  far.  The  first:  Even  though  modern  psy- 
chology takes  the  stand  here  attributed  to  it,  does  the  reli- 
gious consciousness  nevertheless  require  the  hypothesis  of 
the  supernatural  in  this  traditional  form?  Can  its  valua- 
tions of  life  be  sustained  except  on  the  basis  of  some  such 
intercourse  with  beings  and  powers  of  a  higher  order  than 
I  ourselves  ?  Second :  What  is  the  place  and  meaning  of  the 
so-called  subconscious  or  subliminal  regions  of  the  mind  in 
the  development  of  religious  valuations?  The  first  of  these 
questions  can  best  be  treated  in  a  chapter  by  itself.^  The 
second  properly  forms  the  conclusion  of  the  topic  here  under 
discussion. 

What,  then,  is  the  psychological  mechanism  of  religious 

*  A  number  of  elaborate  and  trenchant  criticisms  have  been  made  from 
dififerent  points  of  view.  Perhaps  the  best  and  most  succinct  is  that  of  J.  H. 
Leuba,  International  Journal  of  Ethics,  April,  1904,  pp.  323-339.  See  also 
a  valuable  article  "The  sources  of  the  mystical  revelation,"  George  A.  Coe, 
Hibbert  Journal,  Vol.  VI  (1908),  pp.  359-372. 
.  » Vide  Chapter  XIII,  infra. 


RELIGION  AND  THE  PATHOLOGICAL  321 

valuation?  To  what  extent  is  some  particular  type  of 
mental  activity  especially  concerned  in  its  development? 
May  we  say,  while  we  deny  for  the  time  being  any  such  thing 
as  supernatural  visitation,  that  it  is  nevertheless  true  that  the 
person  who  is  in  an  intoxicated  or  ecstatic  condition  has  any 
peculiar  insight  into  the  meanings  and  values  of  life  ?  These 
questions  can  be  answered  only  upon  the  basis  of  the  organ- 
ization and  function  of  mentality,  as  we  know  it,  in  the  general 
economy  of  life.  The  account  which  follows  may  be  inade- 
quate or  untrue,  but  some  account  we  must  have  before  we 
can  pass  judgment  upon  the  significance  of  unusual  or  patho- 
logical experiences  in  the  development  of  religious  valuation. 

If  the  concept  of  evolution,  as  developed  in  biology,  may  be 
extended  to  apply  to  the  development  of  mind  as  well,  it  is 
almost  inevitable  that  we  should  conceive  of  mentality  as 
appearing  in  the  life-series  in  connection  with  the  necessity 
of  making  more  complicated  adjustments  to  the  environment 
or  perishing  in  the  struggle  for  existence.  Manifestly  the 
ability  to  sense  mechanical  or  etheric  vibrations  of  various 
kinds  will  be  decidedly  useful  to  any  form  of  life.  So  also 
the  capacity  to  perceive  an  object  as  a  definite  thing  with  a 
definite  meaning,  to  recall  past  experiences  with  reference  to 
present  needs,  to  concentrate  or  focalize  one^s  energies  in  an 
act  of  attention,  to  compare,  to  judge,  to  reason,  to  feel  values, 
to  retain  past  experiences  in  the  form  of  useful  habits,  all  of 
these  things,  it  goes  without  saying,  are  more  or  less  useful 
in  the  life  struggle  and  have  probably  evolved  in  connection 
with  it.* 

Now,  these  phases  of  mental  activity  do  not  normally  occur 

in  isolation  or  unconnected  with  others,  but  organized  in 

reactive  systems  of  various  sorts.    They  are  each  of  them 

somewhat  arbitrarily  isolable  phases  of  the  process  by  which 

*  Cf .  Hobhouse,  Mind  in  Evolution,  Chap.  I. 


322  DEVELOPMENT  OF  RELIGION 

a  complicated  organism  may  grapple  with  its  environment; 
each  phase  involves  the  others,  and  contributes  in  some  way  to 
the  organism's  reaction.  Thus,  memory  is  necessary  to  reason 
and  to  the  organization  of  mental  processes  known  as  atten- 
tion, and  in  all  of  these  operations,  moreover,  there  is  usually 
some  appreciation  or  feeling  of  worthfulness  or  the  opposite. 
Every  moment  of  a  person's  life  may  be  described  broadly 
as  a  reaction  to  some  phase  of  his  world.  These  reactions 
differ  greatly  from  moment  to  moment,  both  in  object  and  in 
intensity,  but  one  and  all  they  are  more  or  less  definite  organ- 
izations of  the  person  to  some  aspect  of  his  environment. 

It  is  further  to  be  noted  that  all  such  terms  as  "  truth  "  or 
"  value  "  develop  in  connection  with  this  reactive  experience.* 
It  would  appear  from  this  that  there  are  neither  different 
kinds  of  truth  nor  different  avenues  for  the  perception  of  it. 
The  whole  psychophysical  organism  is  a  mechanism  for  the 
apprehension  of  the  true  and  for  the  appreciation  of  its  values. 
We  need  not,  then,  inquire  which  part  of  this  organism  is  most 
effective  in  directing  action  in  the  practical  world,  or  which 
furnishes  the  key  to  scientific  truth,  or  which  is  most  valuable 
for  discerning  the  things  of  the  spirit,  but  rather  how  they  all 
work  together  to  produce  now  this  result,  now  that.  From 
this  point  of  view,  also,  that  is  true  which  Svorks,'  as  far  as 
it  can  be  tested  in  some  more  or  less  complicated  aspect  of 
life's  struggle.  The  more  complex  the  struggle,  the  more 
difficult  it  becomes  to  be  sure  of  the  ultimate  validity  of  the 
element  in  question.  It  is  the  same  of  values.  Value  is  but 
one  side  of  the  true.  The  true  is  valid  because  it  works,  but 
it  appeals  to  us  as  worthful  because  it  seems  to  us  to  be  some- 
thing in  which  we  can  live  and  move,  something  in  which  we 
can  really  work  out  our  innate  impulse  to  be  doing  something. 

*  Cf.  W.  James,  PragmaUsm^  a  New  Name  for  some  Old  Ways  of  Think- 
ingj  New  York,  1907. 


RELIGION  AND   THE  PATHOLOGICAL  323 

So  much,  then,  for  the  general  concept  of  the  mind  as  an  or- 
ganized system  of  activities  for  the  apprehension  of  the  true 
and  the  appreciation  of  values.  What  account  shall  be 
taken  of  the  so-called  subconscious  in  this  process? 

As  is  well  known,  modern  psychology  has  greatly  enlarged 
our  notion  of  the  extent  and  content  of  the  individual  mind. 
In  a  given  reaction  to  the  world  there  are  always  many  more 
factors  operative  than  can  be  said  to  be  present  in  conscious- 
ness. We  are  all  possessed  of  a  large  background  of  habit  and 
instinct  which  continually  exerts  some  sort  of  influence  upon 
our  conduct.  So,  also,  there  are  all  sorts  of  shadows,  as  it 
were,  of  past  experiences,  ideas,  relationships,  percepts,  valua- 
tions, probably  in  the  form  of  mere  neural  dispositions,  lying 
behind  all  conscious  activity  and  inevitably  contributing  some- 
thing to  its  organization  and  furthering  it  in  some  way. 
Some  psychologists  give  to  this  subliminal  region  a  dim 
consciousness,  and  regard  it  as  more  or  less  detached  from 
the  ordinary  conscious  life  and  possessed  of  peculiar  powers. 
This  view  has  with  great  justice  been  drastically  criticised 
by  others.*  But  it  will  not  be  necessary  here  to  enter  into  any 
controversy  over  the  matter.  The  essential  point  is  that 
there  are  always  regions  beyond  the  point  of  attention,  or  the 
organized  centre  of  the  reaction,  which  contribute  in  some 
way  to  its  movement. 

As  the  reaction  of  the  individual  changes  from  moment 
to  moment,  different  aspects  of  these  outlying  regions  acquire 
prominence;  in  fact,  what  is  at  the  centre  of  consciousness 
at  one  time,  may  at  another  be  at  the  margin,  or  in  the 
subliminal  region,  while  what  was  before  subliminal  may  now 
be  uppermost.     There  is,  in  fact,  no  aspect  of  the  personality 

»  Cf.  the  able  article  by  A.  H.  Pierce,  "An  appeal  from  the  prevailing  notion 
of  a  detached  subconsciousness,"  in  the  Garman  volume  of  commemorative 
Studies  in  Philosophy  and  Psychology. 


324  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

that  can  be  definitely  and  permanently  set  off  in  a  world  of 
its  own,  possessed  of  peculiar  powers  or  with  extraordinary 
capacities  for  apprehending  truth  or  a  particular  kind  of 
truth.  From  the  evolutionary  point  of  view,  the  subliminal 
may  be  regarded,  in  part  at  least,  as  the  matrix  out  of  which 
definite  conscious  states  arise.  Its  content,  as  far  as  it  is 
conscious  at  all,  may  be  thought  of  as  mere  undefined  feeling. 
In  an  individual  of  developed  personality  it  embraces  all  that 
is  not  present  at  the  centre  of  attention.  Habit,  in  the  broad 
sense  of  the  term,  includes  much  that  goes  to  make  up  the 
subliminal.  It  may  be  said  that  here  also,  in  the  main,  are 
the  values  of  the  adjustments,  individual  and  instinctive, 
hitherto  worked  out,  in  so  far  as  they  are  elements  of  conscious- 
ness at  all.  The  presence  of  this  marginal  region  constantly 
affects  the  action  at  the  centre,  the  centre,  in  fact,  being  simply 
the  point  in  consciousness  where  the  values  of  past  experience 
are  brought  into  most  direct  contact  with  the  needs  of  the 
moment,  or  the  point  at  which  the  subliminal  portions  of  the 
mind  are  controlled  and  utilized.  The  passage  from  these 
outer  regions  to  the  centre  is  a  passage  from  more  or  less  inco- 
herent and  uncoordinated  elements  to  the  organized  and 
controlled  side  of  consciousness. 

It  is  on  this  account,  when  the  organization  of  conscious 
elements  which  characterizes  the  individual  at  ordinary 
times  chances  to  disintegrate,  that  he  is  particularly  open  to 
suggestion.  Hence  the  subconscious  is  sometimes  referred  to 
as  the  low-grade  portion  of  the  mind.  Although  this  is  only 
partially  true,  it  would  seem  probable  that  the  mind  habitually 
imder  the  domination  of  the  subliminal  would  not  ordinarily 
have  a  well-organized  individuality  and  would  be  relatively 
low-grade.  To  maintain  that  new  truth  may  be  discovered 
by  these  outskirts  of  the  mental  life  would  seem  little  less  than 
an  absurdity,  for  it  apparently  contains  nothing  better  than 


RELIGION  AND  THE  PATHOLOGICAL  325 

a  more  or  less  refined  sublimate  of  past  experience  and  in- 
stinct, and  the  deliverance  from  it  may  be  a  gleaning  from 
the  grossest  instincts  as  well  as  a  prophetic  inspiration. 
The  opinions,  the  'spiritual  judgments,'  *  visions  of  truth,' 
and  the  like,  are  not  the  more  certain  because  they  are  accom- 
panied with  none  of  the  feelings  of  effort  with  which  the  deci- 
sions and  view-points,  which  are  consciously  worked  out,  are 
frequently  burdened.  Nevertheless,  the  ease  with  which  they 
seem  to  come  is  apt  to  lead  one  to  class  them  with  that  which 
is  ultimate  and  incontrovertible. 

Although  there  is  no  sufficient  ground  for  attributing  to 
the  subconscious  any  peculiar  virtue  for  the  discovery  of 
truth,  material  or  spiritual,  it  is  probably  true  that,  within 
the  limits  of  what  previous  experience  has  provided,  there 
may  be  a  certain  amount  of  elaboration  of  subconscious 
elements  which,  when  they  finally  work  their  way  into  con- 
sciousness, may  seem  like  inspirations  from  another  world. 
Such  phenomena  as  post-hypnotic  suggestion,  so-called  uncon- 
scious cerebration,  and  the  like,  seem  to  indicate  a  certain 
amount  of  activity  in  the  subliminal  region  that  may  at  times 
bud  into  consciousness.  The  only  way  to  account  for  the 
appearance  in  consciousness  of  fully  formed  ideas  with  appar- 
ently no  antecedents  is  to  suppose  that  in  some  neural  system, 
determined  either  by  habit  or  hereditary  tendency,  there 
have  been  a  succession  of  changes  which  have  eventually  led 
to  a  connection  with  the  processes  on  the  conscious  level,  or 
that  within  consciousness  changes  have  occurred  which  have 
brought  it  into  closer  connection  with  some  unconscious  pro- 
cess, with  the  result  of  raising  the  latter  to  the  conscious 
level.* 

*  Dr.  Morton  Prince  has  adduced  evidence  from  the  case  of  Miss  Beauchamp 
that  indicates  some  of  the  supposed  instances  of  subconscious  incubation  may 
really  occur  on  the  level  of  full  consciousness.  See  his  The  Dissociation  of  a 
Personality, 


326  DEVELOPMENT  OF  RELIGION 

The  seeming  chaos  of  the  subconscious  is  possibly  more  ap- 
parent than  real.  We  know  it  only  as  its  processes  chance  to 
form  connections  with  the  centre  of  consciousness,  or  at  those 
times  when  this  centre  disintegrates  sufficiently  to  permit  of 
the  subliminal  elements  forming  an  organization  which  is 
conscious.  Appearing  under  such  circumstances,  they  may 
sometimes  seem,  by  contrast  with  normal  consciousness,  to  be 
simply  masses  of  rubbish,  disconnected  tendencies,  irrational, 
uncontrolled  impulses.  The  centre  of  consciousness  is  the 
adjusting  point  of  the  psychophysical  organism.  Here  all 
the  canons  of  logic  have  been  evolved ;  the  very  fact  that  it  is 
the  adjusting  centre  indicates  that  reasoning  is  its  special 
prerogative.  The  subconscious  is  thus  apparently  illogical 
and  without  control,  except  as  it  is  organized  with  a  conscious 
process.  Within  limits  this  is  true,  but  it  is  equally  true  that 
there  is  another  aspect  of  activity  in  this  region.  It  may 
represent  more  adequately  the  character  of  its  possessor  than 
does  the  central  configuration  of  elements  at  some  given 
moment.  Hence,  under  certain  circumstances,  there  may 
be  a  certain  corrective  value  for  the  centre  in  permitting  these 
marginal  processes  to  have  free  play.  Leuba  has  given  an 
excellent  analysis  of  some  extreme  forms  of  this  in  his  article 
entitled,  'The  state  of  death.*  ^  It  appears  in  less  marked 
degree  in  the  ideals  of  self-abasement,  humility,  the  culti- 
vation of  the  spiritual  life,  as  these  concepts  are  held  by 
the  average  member  of  the  Christian  Church.  The  results 
aimed  at  under  cover  of  these  terms  are  real,  and  have  a  cer- 
tain value  with  reference  to  the  rest  of  consciousness.  James 
put  the  matter  tersely  when  he  said,  "The  hubbub  of  the 
waking  life  might  close  a  door  which  in  the  dreamy  subliminal 
might  remain  ajar  or  open."  ^    This  may  have  a  meaning 

*  American  Journal  of  Psychology,  Vol.  XIV,  pp.  133-145. 
'  Varieties  of  Religious  Experience,  p.  241. 


RELIGION   AND   THE   PATHOLOGICAL  327 

without  our  accepting  his  suggestion  that  the  door  may  be  ajar 
to  supernatural  influences.  It  may  yet  be  true  that  within 
these  regions  there  is  a  certain  heahng  virtue.  Its  tensions 
are,  in  part,  the  subhmation  of  the  values  that  all  one's  pre- 
vious experience  has  brought  to  consciousness.  It  possibly 
acts  upon  the  things  uppermost  in  the  mind  at  a  given  moment 
after  the  analogy  of  the  action  of  the  overtones  upon  a  fun- 
damental in  music,  giving  it  richness  and  color.  The  centre 
of  consciousness,  because  it  is  primarily  an  adjusting  appa- 
ratus, is  often  inadequate  as  an  index  to  the  entirety  of  life. 
The  view  of  things  from  this  point  must  of  necessity  be  partial. 
Thus,  at  times,  it  may  be  worth  while  for  this  central  point 
to  distintegrate,  or  its  movement  to  be  held  in  suspension,  that 
the  outlying  regions,  in  so  far  as  they  represent  one's  life 
in  a  truer  perspective,  may  assert  themselves.  The  religious 
notion  of  dying  to  one's  self  and  obtaining  thereby  a  fuller 
or  *  divine  life'  is  not  at  all  without  meaning,  even  though 
we  may  reject  any  mystical  interpretation  of  the  process. 
It  is  certainly  a  good  thing,  sometimes,  for  one  to  stop  striving, 
and  give  past  values  a  chance  to  come  in  as  correctives  of 
the  present  stress.  Life  as  seen  from  the  point  of  stress  is 
bound  to  be  distorted,  and  it  therefore  needs  correction,  or 
at  least  color,  more  or  less  constantly,  from  the  emotional 
values  and  intuitions  of  experience  as  a  whole. 

We  should  not  deduce  from  this  that  the  feelings,  or  over- 
tones, of  the  subliminal  regions  of  the  mind  are  intrinsically 
superior  to  any  other  phase  of  mental  process.  They  have 
no  meaning  except  in  some  particular  organization  of  mental 
activity.  It  cannot  be  said  that  it  is  either  good  or  bad  for 
religion  that  it  tends  to  be  emotional,  should  such  a  char- 
acterization prove  to  be  true.  It  is  without  doubt  good  for 
every  attitude  of  mind  to  be  emotional  if  the  emotions  are 
of  the  appropriate  kind.    Feeling,  appreciation,  value,  or 


328  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

whatever  we  may  call  it,  plays  an  important  part  in  the 
development  of  all  our  activities.  Just  how  far  it  may  be 
dissociated  from  this  function  and  still  produce  no  unde- 
sirable results,  it  is  impossible  to  say.  In  the  complexities 
of  highly  developed  experiences  there  are  numerous  ways 
in  which  this  matrix  of  value  and  emotion  may  contribute 
to  what  one  is  trying  to  do  at  any  one  moment.  As  was  said 
in  the  preceding  paragraph,  it  may  even  be  advantageous 
for  the  centre  of  gravity  to  shift  from  the  organized  to  the 
relatively  diffused  portions  of  consciousness.  The  letting  of 
the  centre  of  emphasis  pass  from  the  focus  of  activity  over 
to  the  margin,  or  to  what  is  normally  subliminal,  is  naturally 
accompanied  by  a  peculiar  feeling  of  ease,  the  feeling  of 
resignation  so  well  known  to  certain  types  of  the  religious 
mind.  It  is  a  feeling  clearly  due  to  cessation  of  effort  in 
effecting  adjustments  and  to  reliance,  for  the  time,  upon  habit 
and  upon  the  instinctive  forces  of  the  organism. 

We  may  properly  say,  then,  that  the  action  of  the  subcon- 
scious is  indispensable  to  the  most  adequate  functioning  of 
consciousness,  and  in  this  we  naturally  include  the  religious 
types  of  mind.  But  to  say  this  is  not  equivalent  to  setting 
up  the  impulses  originating  in  it  as  intrinsically  better  than 
the  organized  activities  developed  in  the  full  light  of  conscious 
deliberation. 

We  see,  then,  in  the  so-called  subconscious,  not  a  region 
having  mysterious  and  extraordinary  powers,  sharply  divided 
from  the  reasoning  level  of  mental  life,  but  an  organic  and  nec- 
essary part  of  that  life,  a  part  which  ordinarily  functions  in  clos- 
est connection  with  it.  We  know,  also,  that  the  part  played 
by  the  subconscious  is  very  different  in  different  sorts  of  reac- 
tions. That  is  to  say,  at  times  the  activity  of  the  moment  is 
restricted ;  at  other  times  it  is  rich  with  the  overtones  of  past 
experiences  organized  in  forceful  and  even  surprising  ways. 


RELIGION  AND   THE  PATHOLOGICAL  329 

In  view  of  what  has  preceded,  we  may  properly  say  that 
the  religious  mind  does  have  a  view  of  reality  that  is  closed  ^ 
to  one  whose  mental  processes  are  organized  from  a  rigidly 
rationalistic  point  of  view,  not,  however,  because  the  former 
has  any  influx  or  inspiration  from  a  supernatural  world,  but 
because  its  point  of  view  is  appreciative  rather  than  aggressive 
and  rational.  But  this  advantage  of  the  religious  mind  over 
the  scientific  or  rational  one  is  not  ultimate  —  the  one  must 
supplement  the  other,  or  each  will  be  productive  of  seri- 
ous extravagances.  That  relatively  pathological  phenomena 
have  appeared  so  largely  in  connection  with  religion  in  all 
ages  is  the  best  evidence  that  religion  requires  the  ballast  of 
reason.  The  religious  consciousness,  when  it  is  intense, 
tends,  of  course,  to  be  quite  intolerant  to  the  proposals  of 
reason.  Its  own  valuations  appeal  to  it  so  directly,  so  im- 
mediately, that  it  seems  impious  to  question  them  or  even 
discuss  them.  This  attitude  has  found  symbolic  expression 
in  the  theory  of  miraculous  illumination  by  higher  powers. 
The  historical  setting  of  this  idea  we  have  already  outlined 
at  length.  The  theory  of  a  mystic  intercourse  between  the 
divine  and  the  human,  by  which  the  deliverances  of  religion 
attain  to  a  superior  validity,  is  not,  of  course,  the  cause  of  the 
uncompromising  attitude  assumed  by  religion  in  the  presence 
of  science  and  reason ;  it  is  rather  a  crude  and  primitive  way 
of  expressing  it.  If  the  belief  in  this  sort  of  supernaturalism 
were  abandoned,  the  religious  mind  would  still  tend  to  feel 
as  it  does  in  the  presence  of  the  more  rational  or  deliberative 
phases  of  consciousness.  The  mere  fact,  however,  that,  in 
times  of  intense  religious  appreciation,  the  deliberative  pro- 
cesses may  be  held  in  relative  abeyance,  does  not  indicate 
that  they  are  thereby  bad,  psychologically,  or  that  they  are 
uncertain  guides  to  far-reaching,  truthful  views  of  life.  Un- 
less such  processes  are  more  or  less  constantly  at  hand  to 


330  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

guide  religious  aspiration,  the  latter,  in  spite  of  its  more 
inclusive  and  possibly  even  truer  outlook  upon  life,  will, 
as  repeated  observation  affirms,  evaporate  into  vagaries,  if 
not  into  actual  pathologies. 

One  further  question  *  should  be  briefly  considered  in  con- 
nection with  this  discussion  of  the  place  of  unusual  mental 
experiences  in  religious  development.  It  is  the  question  of 
the  connection  of  such  phenomena  with  the  development  of 
the  modern  and  relatively  individualistic  types  of  religious 
attitude. 

Mental  pathology,  up  to  a  certain  point,  is,  we  believe, 
especially  associated  with  the  development  of  individuality. 
The  primitive  individual,  as  we  have  seen,  is  submerged  in 
his  tribe.  The  deities  care  for  the  social  group  rather  than 
for  the  separate  persons  which  compose  it.  This  primitive 
belief  regarding  the  interest  of  the  gods  is  but  the  obverse 
of  the  practical  fact  that  in  early  society  the  desires,  thoughts, 
and  feelings  of  the  individual  have  no  independent  validity 
of  their  own.^  If  they  vary  from  those  of  the  group,  they 
are  apt  to  be  concealed  as  bad,  and  if  they  are  followed  up,  it 
is  usually  in  secret,  through  the  medium  of  magic.  However, 
even  among  very  primitive  people,  the  person  who  is  subject 
to  unusual  experiences,  or  who  knows  how  to  induce  them, 
has  always  enjoyed  a  certain  preeminence.  If  he  could  not 
maintain  himself  as  an  individual  in  a  normal  frame  of  mind, 
he  could  do  so  readily,  if  'possessed *  or  insane,  simply  because 
he  was  then  no  longer  a  mere  individual,  but  was  in  the 
control  of  higher  powers  or  of  the  'power.'  Thus,  among  all 
\  primitive  people  we  find  a  superstitious  respect  paid  to 
everything  that  savors  of  the  abnormal  in  the  sphere  of  the 
psychophysical.      It    was    in    seeking    some    supranormal 

*  Vid^  page  312,  supra. 

*  Vide  page  67,  supra. 


RELIGION  AND   THE   PATHOLOGICAL 


33^ 


experience  that  the  individual  first  broke  loose  from  the 
trammels  of  custom  and  of  tribal  religion.  In  doing  so  he 
was  simply  seeking  for  a  special  visitation  of  the  'power' 
recognized  by  his  whole  group  as  supremely  potent.  The 
extent  to  which  this  private  approach  to  superior  powers 
is  admissible  varies  among  different  peoples.  For  instance, 
it  was  forbidden  in  ancient  Israel,  as  witness  the  laws  against 
those  having  'familiar  spirits.'  The  condemnation  is,  how- 
ever, usually  brought  against  those  who  are  thought  to  seek 
rapport  with  powers  not  recognized  as  friendly  to  the  tribe, 
because  in  this  case  the  individual  is  supposed  to  have  sinis- 
ter designs  against  his  fellows.  But  leaving  out  of  account 
cases  of  this  kind,  there  is  quite  an  extended  sphere  in  which 
it  seems  to  be  generally  recognized  as  legitimate  for  the 
individual  to  seek  the  '  power '  which  manifests  itself  through 
some  unusual  experience.  Many  illustrations  of  this,  drawn 
from  various  Indian  tribes,  might  be  given.  Practically  all 
primitive  peoples  of  ancient  and  modern  times  have  had  their 
diviners,  oracles,  healers,  medicine-men,  and  others  of  this 
ilk,  and  among  many  of  these  peoples  it  is  entirely  proper  for 
a  youth  to  go  into  retirement,  seeking  for  an  experience  that 
will  bestow  upon  him  a  guardian  spirit. 

It  would  be  too  much  to  say  that  such  unusual  experiences 
have  been  the  most  important  means  of  enabling  the  indi- 
vidual to  emerge  from  the  group,  in  possession  of  a  definite 
and  recognizedly  valid  personality,  although  they  have  cer- 
tainly exerted  some  influence  in  this  direction.  The  theory 
of  supernatural  visitation  has  served  to  fix  the  attention  of 
the  individual  upon  his  personal  experience,  and  for  the 
same  reason  it  is  granted  a  sort  of  unquestioned  validity  by 
his  fellow-tribesmen.  Hence,  not  merely  has  the  person 
of  great  personal  powers  tended  to  lead  his  fellows,  but  as 
well  the  man  who  dreams,  sees  visions,  hears  voices,  or  is 


332  DEVELOPMENT  OF  RELIGION 

occasionally  *  possessed'  in  some  other  way.  In  fact,  the 
current  coin  of  *  possession'  is  quite  likely  to  be  utilized  by 
the  normally  forceful  individual  to  reenforce  his  own  sense 
of  the  worthfulness  of  his  purposes  and  ideas.  Thus,  the 
/*born  leader'  of  men  has  frequently  sought  an  'experience' 
by  fasting,  prayer,  and  self-torture.  In  fact,  the  very  con- 
dition of  his  maintaining  his  supremacy  has  often  been  his 
ability  to  show  some  'sign'  of  his  power.  The  shaman,  or 
medicine-man,  who  cannot,  or  ceases  to  be  able  to  offer  such 
proofs  of  his  power,  is  usually  rejected.  Prophets  in  all  ages 
have  sought  to  prove  the  truth  of  their  messages  by  super- 
natural signs.  It  is  from  this  point  of  view  that  Moses  and 
Aaron  are  reported  to  have  worked  certain  miracles  before 
Pharaoh  on  the  return  of  the  former  from  the  desert.  All 
the  earlier  and  to  some  extent  the  later  prophets  of  Yahweh 
believed  they  obtained  their  messages  through  such  unusual 
mental  experiences,  and  it  was  due  to  these  that  they  attained 
their  influence  and  general  preeminence  among  their  people. 

Now,  if  there  is  any  fundamental  difference  between  mod- 
ern and  primitive  types  of  religion,  it  is  in  the  different  place 
assigned  in  each  to  the  individual  person.  The  develop- 
ment of  the  higher  types  of  modern  religions  is  largely  co- 
ordinate with  the  emergence  of  the  person  from  the  primitive, 
undifferentiated  social  group.  In  so  far,  then,  as  imusual  ex- 
periences of  any  type  have  tended  to  emphasize  individuality, 
tended  to  develop  an  inner,  subjective  life  with  a  validity 
of  its  own,  they  have  contributed  to  the  development  of  the 
modern  subjective  religious  type. 

The  development  of  the  individual  has  not,  however,  neces- 
sarily destroyed  his  sense  of,  or  dependence  upon,  social  re- 
lationships. It  has  rather  tended  to  strengthen  and  deepen 
them.  The  effect  of  modern  subjectivity  has,  in  the  main, 
been  the  same  upon  religion.    As  in  the  beginning,  religion 


RELIGION  AND  THE  PATHOLOGICAL  333 

continues  to  be  essentially  a  social  matter,  but  it  has  differen- 
tiated as  personality  has  grown  in  complexity.  It  has  ceased 
to  be  an  affair  of  the  mass,  and  has  become  one  in  which  all 
the  finer  shades  of  personality  may  find  expression,  to  which 
each  one  contributes  his  own  angle  of  valuation,  the  peculiar 
force  of  his  own  personality. 

Even  the  most  subjective  types  of  religious  life  are  depend- 
ent in  one  way  or  another  upon  the  background  of  society, 
with  its  various  stimuli,  and  its  various  forms  of  approval  and 
disapproval.  The  respect  and  awe  manifested  by  one's  fel- 
lows is  an  important  stimulus  to  even  extreme  asceticism.*^^ 
If  Simon  Stylites  had  not  been  visited  by  thousands  of  awe- 
struck pilgrims,  it  is  questionable  whether  he  would  have  kept 
up  his  abode  upon  the  top  of  the  pillar  for  so  lengthy  a  period. 
Likewise,  when  the  individual  seeks  a  *  vision,'  he  cannot  en- 
tirely abstract  himself  from  the  meaning  it  will  have  in  his 
social  world.  And  even  if  earthly  social  relationships  melt 
away  from  consciousness,  he  inevitably  builds  up  in  their 
place  a  socialized  background  for  his  religious  values  in  the 
spirits  or  deity  of  the  'other  world,'  with  whom  he  holds  com- 
mimion  and  whose  favor  and  approval  he  seeks  to  attain. 
But  even  then,  he  usually  comes  back  eventually  to  his  ac- 
'  tual  social  world  with  a  spirit  renewed  for  its  needful  activi- 
ties.* 

We  cannot  here  take  the  space  to  illustrate  at  length  the 
essential  sociality  of  the  higher  and  more  subjective  religious 
experiences.^  The  point  we  have  wished  to  emphasize  is  that 
the  unusual  experiences  associated  with  religious  appreciation 
have  contributed  in  important  ways  to  the  differentiation  of 
religious  attitudes,  one  aspect  of  which  has  been  an  increas- 

1  Cf.  Leuba,  "  Tendances  fondamentales  des  mystiques  chr^tiens,"  Revue 
Philosophique,  Vol.  LIV,  pp.  i,  44i- 

»  Cf .  Rufus  M.  Jones,  The  Social  Law  in  the  Spiritual  World. 


334 


DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 


ing  subjectivity,  but  in  the  development  of  this,  the  primitive 
element  of  sociality  has  not  necessarily  been  lost. 

The  unusual  experience  functions  in  religious  development, 
not  only  by  giving  the  individual  an  abnormal  prominence  in 
his  group,  and  thus  contributing  to  his  sense  of  personality, 
but  also  by  actually  provoking  reflective  thought,  which, 
more  than  anything  else,  is  the  sign  of  growing  individuality. 
It  is  scarcely  possible  that  the  person  *  possessed^  should  al- 
ways remain  in  his  state  of  exaltation.  When  in  his  normal 
frame  of  mind,  he  will  retain  some  of  the  preeminence  acquired 
through  his  unusual  states.  Even  then  he  will  tend  to  be 
regarded  with  a  certain  respect  by  his  fellows,  and  they  will 
give  to  his  words  more  weight  than  is  granted  to  the  sayings 
of  ordinary  persons.  All  this  will  stimulate  his  tendency  to 
think,  even  though  he  be  capable  of  thinking  only  upon  a  very 
crude  level.  In  times  of  normal  consciousness,  also,  he  will 
often  reflect  upon  his  experiences,  and  attempt  to  interpret 
them  in  terms  of  the  canons  of  'possession'  current  in  his 
environment.  But  the  thinking,  whether  crude  or  refined, 
is  a  factor  to  be  reckoned  with  in  religious  development. 

An  interesting  illustration  of  what  is  referred  to  in  the  above 
paragraph  is  furnished  by  the  case  of  William  Monod,  a  self- 
styled  messiah  living  in  France  in  the  last  century  (b.  1800, 
d.  1896).  When  he  was  a  comparatively  young  man,  he  was 
attacked  by  an  acute  dementia  necessitating  his  confinement. 
In  this  period  he  at  times  heard  voices  which  were  at  first 
undefined,  but  which  he  gradually  interpreted  as  words  from 
God,  and  which  he  finally  understood  to  be  conveying  to  him 
the  information  that  he  was  Christ,  returned  to  earth.  After 
this  early  aberration  he  was  apparently  sane  to  the  end  of  a 
long  and  active  life,  unless  we  are  to  regard  his  persistant, 
though  for  many  years  concealed  belief  in  his  messiahship  as  a 
mild  reverberation  of  his  early  acute  attack.    In  his  long 


RELIGION  AND   THE  PATHOLOGICAL 


335 


periods  of  silence  and  apparent  sanity  he  elaborated  with  the 
utmost  care  and  logical  acumen  a  body  of  doctrine  and  a 
justification  for  his  supposed  messiahship.  As  his  biogra- 
pher says :  *  "  Through  reflection,  through  theological  elab- 
oration, through  contact  with  men  and  through  the  endeavor 
to  adjust  his  ideas  to  social  conditions,  that  which  was  at  first 
mere  morbid  exaltation  and  hallucination  became,  little  by 
little,  a  defendable  religion." 

The  case  of  Monod  thus  illustrates  an  important  aspect  of 
the  influence  of  the  pathological  in  religious  development.  In 
the  case  of  some  persons  having  such  experiences,  doctrines 
so  erratic  will  be  put  forth  that  they  can  find  no  permanent 
place  in  the  existing  religious  attitudes  of  the  social  body. 
These  will  either  die  out  or,  if  forcefully  enough  presented  and 
if,  by  chance,  expressive  of  real  needs,  not  sufficiently  recog- 
nized by  existing  religions,  will  result  in  the  development 
of  new  sects  such  as  that  of  Mormonism  or  of  Christian 
Science,  to  mention  only  two  among  many.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  messages  of  these  *  inspired'  persons  may  in  a  meas- 
ure effect  an  actual  reconstruction  in  contemporary  religion. 
The  later  Hebrew  prophets  illustrate  this  alternative.  They,, 
without  doubt,  had  unusual  experiences,  as  did  the  earlier 
prophets.  They  seem  to  have  heard  *  voices'  and  to  have  had 
their  visions.  If  they  had  periods  of  exaltation  or  rapture,  it 
is  psychologically  conceivable  that  they  gained  in  this  way 
peculiar  discernments  of  the  moral  and  religious  needs  of 
their  times.^  But,  after  all,  the  most  important  contributions 
of  such  experiences  must  have  been  a  certain  sense  of  assur- 
ance that  their  meditations  upon  contemporary  social  condi- 

*  G.  Re  vault  D'Allonnes,  Psychologie  d'une  religion,  Paris,  1908,  p.  16.  The 
book  is  an  extremely  interesting  study  of  the  psychical  development  of  a  modem 
religious  innovator.  The  value  of  the  work  is  enhanced  by  a  comparative 
study  of  other  ancient  and  modern  messiahs. 

'  Vide  pages  278  f.,  307,  supra. 


336  DEVELOPMENT  OF  RELIGION 

tions  were  valid  and  worth  promulgating,  even  at  great  per- 
sonal suffering.  They  believed  they  spoke  the  words  of 
Yahweh,  but  they  were,  to  start  with,  men  of  profound  insight 
into  life,  and  it  is  to  this  personal  character,  developed  in  part 
by  their  remarkable  experiences,  that  we  must  go  for  the  ex- 
planation of  their  lofty  messages. 

It  is  this  interaction  of  the  unusual  experience  with  periods 
of  reflection  (periods  induced  in  part,  perhaps,  by  antecedent 
experiences)  that  we  may  safely  look  for  the  greatest  positive 
significance  of  the  relatively  pathological  in  the  development 
of  higher  religious  values.  As  far  as  the  religious  conscious- 
ness is  bound  down  by  custom,  its  values  are  static.  It  often 
actually  requires  one  with  extraordinary  fervor  and  the 
momentum  acquired  from  pathological  experiences  to  break 
with  traditional  values  and  blaze  new  trails  for  religious  prog- 
ress. It  is  an  actual  fact  of  human  history  that  the  pro- 
phetic messages  which  have  met  with  the  widest  acceptance 
have  come  under  circumstances  such  as  these. 

If  the  deliverance  of  the  prophet  or  messiah  chances  to 
connect  with  genuine  human  needs,  and  if  it  is  promulgated 
by  disciples  who  know  how  to  translate  it  effectively  into  the 
varied  conditions  of  social  life,  it  comes  to  be  regarded  as  true. 
But  the  conditions  which  make  for  social  acceptance  are  many 
and  subtle,  and  if  the  new  teaching  is  lacking  in  some  of  these 
respects,  although  it  maybe  otherwise  quite  worthy,  it  becomes 
a  false  doctrine,  and  its  enunciator  is  finally  classed  with  the 
spurious  prophets,  of  whom  there  have  been  many.  The 
biographer  of  W.  Monod  says,  truly,  that  the  only  reason  for 
classing  this  man  with  the  'false  christs'  was  his  inability  to 
gain  wide  social  acceptance.  His  life  was  pure,  dignified,  and 
yet  humble.  There  can  be  no  fault  found  with  his  ethical 
teaching,  which,  in  fact,  did  not  differ  materially  from  accepted 
Christian  doctrine,  and  his  theological  justification  of  his 


RELIGION  AND   THE   PATHOLOGICAL  337 

mission  was  as  adequate  as  anything  that  the  New  Testa- 
ment can  put  forth  in  maintenance  of  Jesus  as  the  Messiah. 

We  have  come  at  length  to  the  end  of  a  long  and  difficult 
inquiry,  and  yet  we  do  not  imagine  we  have  solved  or  even 
stated  all  the  problems  involved.  Perhaps  we  have  indicated 
at  least  a  legitimate  way  in  which  such  things  are  to  be 
approached.  The  pathological  phenomena  which  have  al- 
ways been  more  or  less  associated  with  religion  are  seen  to  be, 
in  part,  an  outcome  of  the  very  fervor  of  religious  valuation 
itself  and,  in  part,  of  the  primitive  belief  in  supernaturalism 
which  has  tended  to  induce  in  the  individual  unusual  states  of 
mind  and  unusual  modes  of  behavior.  It  has  been  further 
pointed  out  that,  while  subconscious  processes  do  not  furnish 
any  basis  for  a  continuance  of  the  primitive  belief  in  the  possi- 
bility of  the  interaction  of  superior  powers  with  the  human 
mind,  these  same  processes  may  actually  contribute  in  posi- 
tive ways  to  religious  appreciations,  and  finally,  that  the 
unusual  experience  has  been  one  of  the  phases  of  the  differen- 
tiation of  the  individual  from  the  social  group,  and  conse- 
quently that  it  has  contributed  something  to  the  highly 
differentiated  consciousness  of  some  of  the  modern  culture 
races.  As  was  seen,  however,  the  ultimate  validity  of  any  such 
experience,  historically,  at  least,  has  been  determined  by  the 
degree  in  which  it  weaves  itself  into  some  social  organism  or, 
failing  in  that,  constructs  a  social  matrix  of  its  own. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

RELIGIOUS    VALUATION   AND   SUPERNATURALISM  ^ 

In  the  preceding  chapter  ^  the  question  was  raised  as  to 
whether  the  valuations  of  religion  can  actually  be  considered 
valid  except  upon  the  basis  of  some  sort  of  supernatural  world 
of  spirits  or  deities  with  whom  communion  is  possible  and 
from  whom  various  inspirations  or  influxes  of  energy  may  be 
expected,  if  not  for  the  purpose  of  changing  the  order  of  nature, 
as  the  primitive  man  imagines,  at  least  for  the  purpose  of 
bestowing  upon  the  suppliant  strength  of  will  or  fresh  courage 
I  in  the  midst  of  sorrow  or  bitter  calamity.  This  question  is 
an  altogether  legitimate  one,  even  though  psychology  should 
seem  to  be  able  to  account  entirely  for  all  the  phases  of  reli- 
gious experience  without  recourse  to  spirit  agencies  of  any 
sort.  We  say  it  is  legitimate,  because  one  sort  of  experience 
cannot  be  said,  offhand,  to  be  more  reliable  than  another 
kind.  If  the  religious  mind  contends  that  it  actually  receives 
its  values  from  a  supernatural  world,  and  that  it  continually 
recuperates  itself  through  intercourse  with  such  a  higher  or- 
der of  existence,  its  various  experiences  and  concepts  should 
be  examined,  not  merely  to  determine  whether  they  can  be 
explained  by  the  canons  of  psychology,  but  as  well  to  deter- 
mine whether  their  real  significance  and  value  for  human  life 
would  disappear  if  a  supernatural  world  capable  of  interacting 
with  the  natural  should  be  rejected. 

*  Portions  of  this  chapter  were  published  in  the  Monist,  Vol.  XV,  p.  348, 
under  the  title  "The  pragmatic  interpretation  of  Christian  dogmas." 

*  Vide  supra,  page  320. 

338 


RELIGIOUS   VALUATION  AND   SUPERNATURALISM      339 

Our  point  of  view  in  these  studies  has  continually  been  that 
the  religious  attitude  is  a  fairly  determinable  psychological 
complex  which  has  been  built  up  in  the  course  of  the  li^iy^ 
process  and  which,  therefore,  bears  a  definite  relation  to  the  ^ 
physical  and  social  environment  within  which  it  has  taken 
shape.  Since  it  is  thus  a  psychical  complex  rather  than  an 
elementary  instinct,  it  is  not  necessarily  always  present  as  a 
definite  attitude  in  a  given  individual,  and  it  is  further  quite 
conceivable  that  in  some  persons  it  may  never  be  clearly  or- 
ganized at  all.  But,  notwithstanding  this,  we  may  assume 
the  attitude  does  have  a  determinable  place  within  the  life- 
process.  It  will  help  in  the  solution  of  the  problem  of  the 
chapter  to  try  to  state  as  well  as  we  can  what  that  place  is. 

What  the  final  meaning,  or  reality,  of  the  universe  may  be, 
we  scarcely  need  say,  is  practically  beyond  all  possible  ad- 
vances in  our  knowledge.  The  best  statement  we  can  give 
of  the  world  we  must  always  feel  falls  far  short,  if  not  of  what 
present  experience  has  given  us,  at  least  of  what  further  ex- 
perience will  hold  to  be  valid.  And,  not  merely  do  we  feel 
the  imiverse  affords  unlimited  opportunities  for  the  develop- 
ment of  experience,  but  also  we  just  as  truly  feel  that  what  we 
actually  are  or  have  attained  has  an  element  of  subtlety  about 
it  that  defies  statement.  Every  formula  we  can  possibly 
construct  regarding  our  experience  is  inevitably  abstract,  and 
we  know  when  we  have  spoken  that  life  is  richer  in  meanings 
than  our  best  phrases  have  or  can  give  it  credit  for  being. 
Our  statements  are  usually  confined  to  what  is  accomplished, 
to  the  static  aspects  of  experience,  whereas  life  is  essentially 
projective,  striving,  reaching  out.  Thus,  any  statement  which 
takes  account  only  of  what  we  have  actually  done  thus  far,  or 
does  not  take  into  account  the  direction  of  our  movement, 
must  be  either  untrue  or  inadequate.  Aspiration  is  realy  even 
though  the  specific  way  in  which  we  may  be  able  to  symbolize 


340  DEVELOPMENT  OF  RELIGION 

our  aspirations  may  not  be  descriptive  of  something  in  the 
world  in  quite  the  same  way  as  are  such  concepts  as  stone  or 
tree. 

Now,  the  religious  consciousness  is,  as  we  conceive  it,  an 
attitude  built  up  about  this  larger  meaning  of  experience 
which  we  feel  but  cannot  state  except  in  relatively  vague  sym- 
bolic forms.  There  is  nothing  especially  metaphysical  about 
this  point  of  view.  On  the  one  hand,  there  is  such  a  thing  as 
the  religious  attitude  of  mind,  and,  on  the  other,  experience 
does  appeal  to  us  as  more  worthful  than  we  shall  ever  be  able 
to  state  in  exact  terms.  The  religious  attitude  represents  the 
attempt  of  some,  if  not  most,  minds  to  grapple  with  this  larger 
reality  or  meaning  of  life,  to  give  it  a  symbolism  that  may 
render  it  more  definitely  available,  or  capable  of  playing  some 
explicit  part  in  our  social  interactions.  But,  inasmuch  as  the 
universe,  as  we  have  already  said,  will  probably  always  offer 
possibilities  of  experience  beyond  any  actual  attainment,  it 
will  usually  be  found  to  be  true,  in  the  light  of  more  extended 
dealings  with  things,  that  our  formulas  and  symbols  err,  not 
in  overstating  the  possibilities  of  experience,  but  rather  in 
narrowing  down  these  possibilities  and  tending  to  limit  them 
for  all  time. 

What  we  have  just  said  applies  preeminently  to  the  ac- 
count of  reality  offered  by  religion.  Religious  concepts  and 
valuations  are  symbols  of  relationships  and  meanings  which 
must  expand  as  experience  expands.  Thus,  its  hypothesis  of  a 
supernatural  world  is  purely  symbolic  of  a  preexisting  valuating 
attitude,  and  the  question  as  to  whether  this  supernatural 
world  exists  as  it  is  postulated  does  not  add  to  nor  detract 
from  the  validity  of  the  valuating  consciousness.  If  the 
question  of  the  reality  of  the  order  of  existence  postulated  by 
religion  is  raised,  we  should  have  to  say  that  probably  all  the 
concepts  of  religion  fall  short  of  an  adequate  account  of  ex- 


RELIGIOUS  VALUATION  AND   SUPERNATURALISM 


341 


perience  rather  than  that  they  attribute  too  much  to  it.  The 
religious  mind  may  suppose,  for  instance,  the  existence  of  a 
universal  moral  order  and  a  supernatural  being  or  beings 
who  have  some  connection  with  this  order  and  with  whom  it 
may  have  communion.  Particular  efforts  may  be  made,  upon 
the  strength  of  such  a  moral  order,  with  its  supernatural  beings, 
or  a  crisis  or  problem  may  appear  which  seems  inexplicable 
except  upon  the  supposition  of  a  God  who  is  just,  or  jealous, 
or  loving.  Or,  to  put  it  another  way,  the  elements  of  the 
crisis  which  we  face  may  be  so  conflicting  that  all  experience 
will  seem  to  resolve  itself  into  a  chaos  unless  there  is  in  the 
universe  an  all-wise  God  through  whom  the  present  conflict 
may  be  given  a  meaning  or  through  whom  order  will  in  some 
way  be  wrought  out.  All  persons  may  not  agree  that  the 
particular  hypothesis  offered  is  satisfactory,  but  that  is  im- 
material here.  Manifestly,  the  important  point  is  that  the 
supposition  does  render  some  experience  intelligible  to  its 
possessor,  and  for  the  time  being  such  a  one  is  not  concerned 
as  to  whether  his  hypothesis  is  a  final  and  adequate  descrip- 
tion of  reality  or  not.  / 

Briefly  restated,  the  idea  is  thist  Thought  and  the  products 
of  thought  are  to  be  interpreted,\nd  hence  are  vahd  only 
with  reference  to  certain  crises  or  tensions  that  arise  in  action. 
It  is  not  permissible  to  take  the  conceptual  machinery  thus 
evolved  and  hold  that  it  gives  us  a  cue  to  the  construction  of  a 
reality  beyond  experience.  The  concepts  of  the  chemist  are 
true  because  they  enable  him  to  control  his  reactions,  but  he 
has  not  the  least  right  to  assume  that  he  has  therefore  in  them 
an  account  of  the  ultimate  nature  of  matter.  They  give  an 
account  of  it  only  as  it  is  concerned  in  practical  experiences  of 
the  sort  with  which  the  chemist  deals.  It  is  an  almost  uni- 
versal tendency,  however,  to  take  these  statements  that  seem 
to  give  us  definite  control  under  specific  conditions  and  to 


342  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

generalize  them  into  dicta  about  absolute  existence.  As 
opposed  to  this  tendency,  it  is  here  maintained  that  our  con- 
cepts are  only  functionally  valid,  and  do  not  refer  to  ontologi- 
cal  realities.  All  our  realities  are  of  the  functional  variety. 
They  are  realities  because  they  serve  these  definite  functions, 
and  for  no  other  reason.  Some  of  them  have  a  wider  variety 
of  uses  than  others,  and  hence  appear  in  a  greater  number  of 
our  practical  experiences.  As  such  they  seem  to  have  a  high 
degree  of  objectivity.  *  Objective  reality'  is,  in  fact,  our  name 
for  those  elements  which  appear  in  the  greatest  variety  of 
situations  and  interpret  the  most  varied  experiences.  Such 
a  statement  does  not  dispute  the  reality  of  the  world,  but  simply 
tells  in  what  it  consists.  It  amounts  to  this,  that  whatever 
else  reality  may  be,  as  far  as  we  are  concerned,  it  is  something 
involved  in  the  onward  movement  of  our  experience,  and  all 
our  descriptions  of  it  are  with  reference  to  its  function  in  this 
onward  movement. 

But  we  are  not  here  interested  in  the  general  application  of 
this  principle.  We  wish  rather  to  work  it  out  with  reference  to 
the  meaning  of  religious  concepts.  It  should  throw  light 
upon  the  vexed  question  as  to  the  place  and  authority  of  the 
dogmas  of  past  ages  in  the  modern  religious  consciousness. 
It  is  worth  while  to  inquire  whether  they  should  be  rejected  in 
toto  as  false,  or  whether  they  have  a  certain  validity,  and  if  so, 
in  what  that  validity  may  consist.  Does  the  dogma  of  the 
Trinity,  for  instance,  have  any  claim  from  this  point  of  view 
to  being  a  valid  statement  of  the  being  of  God  ?  We  should 
note  first  the  context  in  which  some  of  these  dogmas  origi- 
nated. 

It  is  well  known  that  New  Testament  Christianity  was  not 
dogmatic  but  practical.  That  is,  it  did  not  promulgate  the 
dogmas  of  a  system  of  religion,  but  was  the  exponent  of 
a  certain  manner  of  life.    "The  teachings  of  Jesus  do  not 


RELIGIOUS  VALUATION  AND   SUPERNATURALISM      343 

appear  in  a  systematic  form,  but  in  terms  of  life  and  social  re- 
lations. It  requires  laborious  research  and  reconstruction  to 
formulate  them  into  scientific  statements.  Neither  do  the 
apostles  present  the  Gospel  in  a  theology,  although  doubtless 
they  come  nearer  to  it  than  Jesus  does,  and  that  is  why  the- 
ology took  its  point  of  departure  from  them  rather  than  from 
Jesus.  But  still,  even  with  them,  while  the  theological  ma- 
terial is  more  accessible,  there  is  no  systematic  arrangement 
nor  attempt  at  true  philosophical  explanation.  They  wrote 
for  specific  practical  purposes,  and  always  massed  their  teach- 
ings so  as  to  bear  upon  the  end  in  view.  .  .  .  The  New  Tes- 
tament is  a  book  of  religious  truth,  not  of  theological  science; 
and  it  is  content  to  state  this  truth  in  its  practical  aspects, 
upon  the  sole  authority  of  Jesus,  and  not  because  its  philo- 
sophical foundations  have  been  worked  out  and  approved."  * 
"  The  distinctively  theological  interest  which  first  began  to 
make  itself  strongly  felt  in  the  Church  during  the  second 
century  centred  immediately  in  Christology  and  the  doctrine 
of  the  Trinity."  ^  As  we  have  seen,  this  doctrine  does  not 
appear  as  a  dogma  in  the  New  Testament,  for  primitive  \ 
Christianity  was  concerned  with  the  concrete  problems  of 
life.  Thus  the  concepts  on  which  the  dogma  was  later  founded 
and  which  are  to-day  interpreted  in  the  light  of  the  dogma, 
were  essentially  the  expression  of  definite  practical  situations 
and  problems.  It  is  true  the  idea  of  the  Trinity  was  present 
in  the  early  Church,  but  purely  as  a  practical  concept.  It  had 
developed  in  the  centuries  immediately  preceding  the  Christian 
era  under  the  influence  of  Greek  thought.  It  grew  out  of  the 
notion  that  God  could  not  act  directly  upon  the  world,  but 
only  through  certain  intermediaries,  as  angels,  his  word,  or  ^ 
his  spirit.    Hence,  when  anything  occurred  which  seemed  to 

»  Osbom,  The  Recovery  and  Restatement  of  the  Gospel,  pp.  171, 179. 
*Ibid.,p.7S' 


344  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

demand  the  explanation  of  supernatural  influence,  it  was 
natural  to  attribute  it  to  the  spirit  of  God  or  to  his  angels. 
In  this  form  it  was  not  a  dogma,  but  simply  a  working 
concept  that  was  in  harmony  with  the  then  current  notion 
^God. 

This  is  certainly  the  context  of  its  appearance  in  the  New 
Testament.  Wherever  the  Spirit  is  mentioned,  it  is  with 
reference  to  just  such  practical  problems  or  crises  within 
experience,  problems  that  demanded  some  sort  of  explana- 
tion. For  example,  the  mysterious  conception  of  Mary  is 
explained  thus.  The  baptism  of  Jesus  differs  from  that  of 
John  by  the  presence  in  it  of  this  divine  element.  Certain 
peculiar  states  of  mind,  or  changes  of  mental  attitude,  that 
seem  to  transcend  experience  come  to  attention,  and  these 
are  interpreted  as  caused  by  the  Holy  Spirit.* 

That  it  is  essentially  a  practical  concept  comes  out  most 
clearly  when  Jesus  seeks  to  allay  the  sorrow  of  the  disciples 
over  his  departure  by  promising  the  Holy  Spirit  as  a  comforter 
in  his  place.  In  no  case  do  we  find  reference  to  the  Spirit 
except  when  some  real  or  conceived  situation  of  life  is  in 
the  foreground.  If,  with  their  peculiar  heritage  of  thought, 
these  practical  situations  were  met  in  the  light  of  such  a  concept 
of  the  relation  of  God  to  man,  we  shall  certainly  not  wish  to 
deny  its  validity,  but  maintain  rather  that  it  was  essentially 
illogical  to  turn  this  doctrine  into  a  dogma  and  postulate  as 

*  As  examples  note  the  case  of  Zacharias  cited  in  Luke  i.  15;  that  of 
Elizabeth  in  the  same  chapter,  41 ;  that  of  Simeon,  Luke  ii.  25.  So  also 
through  the  concept  of  the  Holy  Spirit  is  explained  the  state  of  mind  that  lay 
back  of  otherwise  unaccountable  actions.  Thus  in  Acts  iv.  31,  "They  were 
all  filled  with  the  Holy  Ghost."  It  is  a  means  by  which  one  may  be  endowed 
with  wisdom,  Luke  xii.  12.  It  is  the  agency  by  which  one's  entire  mental 
attitude  may  be  changed,  as  in  Acts  viii.  15,  17,  18,  19;  x,  44,  45,  46;  xi.  15- 
16;  XV.  8;  xix.  2-6;  Titus  iii.  5.  Prophetic  power  is  to  be  explained  by  its 
presence,  Luke  ii.  26;  iii.  22.  Our  own  attitude  of  life  is  modified  by  it, 
Romans  xiv.  17 ;  xv.  13 ;  i  Thes.  i.  6. 


RELIGIOUS  VALUATION  AND   SUPERNATURALISM      345 

ontologically  real  what  had  reality  only  as  it  served  certain 
functions  in  concrete  life.  How  could  its  practical  significance 
be  enhanced  by  its  being  generalized  into  an  ultimate  view 
as  to  the  nature  of  the  person  of  God  ?  Every  thinker  must 
feel  that  the  reality  of  God  is  far  greater  than  can  be  crystal- 
lized in  any  such  relation  as  that  of  son,  spirit,  and  father. 
Such  concepts  are  simply  ways  of  making  his  infinitude  come 
into  working  contact  with  our  life. 

As  with  the  question  of  the  spirit  of  God,  so  with  that  of 
the  Son.  His  significance  was  certainly  a  functional  one. 
Whether  we  take  the  standpoint  of  those  of  his  time  who  ex- 
pected a  Messiah  or  that  of  the  Christian  world  of  to-day,  we 
must  admit  that  he  was  significant  to  them,  and  is  significant 
to  us,  primarily  because  he  is  conceived  as  the  mediator  of 
certain  definite  experiences.  With  the  modem  Christian  the 
significance  of  Jesus  is  certainly  as  an  interpreter  of  God. 
The  phrase,  "What  would  Jesus  do,"  however  objectionable 
it  may  be,  is  at  least  evidence  of  this  attitude.  The  dogma 
as  to  his  metaphysical  relation  to  God  is  meaningless  except 
in  so  far  as  he  is  also  functionally  real. 

In  the  New  Testament  times  it  is,  of  course,  true,  as  every 
one  knows,  that  the  followers  of  Christ  conceived  him  rather 
in  terms  of  a  definite  earthly  mission,  more  or  less,  in  the 
light  of  the  earlier  Jewish  notions,  and  by  no  means  as 
bearing  a  certain  metaphysical  relation  to  God.  He  bore  a 
definite  relation  to  the  glory  of  Israel,  if  not  temporally,  at 
least  in  a  spiritual  sense.  The  conclusion  is,  then,  that  both 
the  Son  and  the  Spirit  were  originally  the  embodiments  of 
certain  practical  attitudes  related  in  a  definite  way  to  the 
tendency  that  became  prominent  among  the  Alexandrian 
Jews  to  exalt  God  infinitely  above  all  that  is  earthly,  human, 
and  imperfect,  even  above  all  human  conception.  "From 
the  idea  that  God  is  absolutely  incomprehensible  and  infinitely 


346  DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 

exalted  flows  the  other  that  man  cannot  enter  into  direct 
relations  with  him,  that  he  can  neither  know  nor  tell  what 
he  is."* 

**This  idea  that  God  is  infinitely  exalted  above  the  world 
and  without  direct  relations  with  it,  necessarily  led  to  the 
recognition  of  intermediate  beings,  through  whom  relations 
might  be  made  possible."  ^ 

The  point  of  the  whole  discussion  is  this :  that  there  existed 
at  that  time  a  certain  attitude  of  mind  that  could  best  view  its 
onward  movement  in  terms  of  son  and  spirit,  and  God  him- 
self could  likewise  be  best  conceived,  and  no  doubt  always 
can  be  for  that  matter,  as  a  father.  It  is  further  held  that  these 
concepts  interpreted  to  the  believer  certain  practical  situations, 
gave  him  their  value,  so  to  speak,  and  hence  freed  him  for 
further  action  in  similar  directions.  We  do  not  question  but 
that  such  an  attitude  may  still  exist,  and  hence  demand  such 
concepts  for  its  expression.  But  the  point  of  emphasis,  in 
any  case,  is  upon  the  tension  within  a  certain  type  of  experi- 
ence rather  than  upon  any  reality  outside  this  tension.  It  is 
only  when  the  specific  need  has  passed,  or  at  least  is  no  longer 
realized  acutely,  that  the  conceptual  tools  are  brought  into 
clear  consciousness  and  come  to  be  regarded  as  having  a 
reality  of  their  own.  It  is  then  that  the  functional  reality 
ceases  and  the  dogma  takes  its  place.  If  a  certain  type  of 
mind  finds  the  concept  of  the  Trinity  significant,  it  is  certainly 
a  fact  to  be  taken  into  account,  but  it  does  not  follow,  as  has 
already  been  said,  that  because  it  is  true  as  an  interpretative 
principle  it  is  also  true  without  reference  to  any  experience 
that  is  true  ontologically. 

This  point  of  view  may  be  applied  with  profit  to  a  number 
of  other  Christian  doctrines.    We  may  quote  in  this  connec- 

*  Piepenbring,  Theology  of  the  Old  Testament,  p.  249. 

*  Ibid.,  p.  250. 


RELIGIOUS  VALUATION  AND   SUPERNATURALISM      347 

tion  from  an  article  by  H.  Barker.^  Traditional  religion  em- 
bodied "a  great  religious  or  ethical  conception,  that  of  a 
suffering  saviour-God.  Such  a  conception  appealed  directly 
to  faith ;  it  was  a  gospel  of  salvation  that  told  of  a  divine  love 
and  pity  greater  than  it  was  possible  to  hope  for,  and  sum- 
moned men  to  strive  with  all  their  energies  to  be  worthy  of 
their  God.  Such  a  gospel  was  worth  believing.  It  was  a 
true  object  of  faith ;  and  its  moral  grandeur  was  a  legitimate 
motive  for  faith.  On  the  other  hand,  the  traditional  creed  set 
forth  certain  miraculous  or  supernatural  facts  which  guaran- 
teed the  reality  of  its  ethical  conception."  Barker  illustrates 
the  above  point  as  follows :  "  The  essence  of  the  belief  in  the 
resurrection  of  Christ  on  the  religious  side  is  the  conviction 
that  the  personality  of  Christ  has  a  spiritual  value  which 
constrains  us  to  think  of  it  as  eternal.  A  universe  in  which 
it  passed  away  and  lesser  things  remained,  would,  for  the 
Christian,  be  irrational.  Now  this  conviction  can  as  little  be  y 
proved  by  any  ghost-like  appearances  of  Christ  after  his  death  J/ 
as  it  can  be  refuted  by  their  absence.  If  such  appearances 
counted  for  anything,  they  would  be  as  important  in  the  case 
of  any  other  man  of  whom  they  have  been  asserted.  .  .  .  The 
truth  is  that  the  Christian's  religious  conviction  about  Christ 
craves  for  some  visible  sign  and  confirmation  of  its  truth,  / 
and  the  resurrection  seems  to  faith  to  be  such  a  sign.  The 
error  lies  in  turning  a  symbol  which  only  faith  can  apprehend 
into  the  very  premise  by  which  the  faith  itself  is  proved.  .  .  . 
Thus,  when  the  symbol  begins  to  be  used  as  a  logical  premise,  / 
we  may  be  sure  that  the  faith  has  lost  its  intrinsic  certainty,  V 
and  is  seeking  to  quiet  itself  in  some  outward  and  inferior 
guarantee."  Putting  this  point  in  the  terms  that  we  have  been 
using,  we  should  say  that  when  the  practical  situations  cease 

1  "Factors  in  the  efficiency  of  religious  belief,"  International  Journal  of 
EthicSfVol  XI,  p.  329. 


348  DEVELOPMENT   OF^  RELIGION 

to  be  acutely  felt,  the  conceptual  machinery  that  belonged 
with  them  in  a  manner  holds  over  and  finds  its  guarantee,  no 
longer  in  its  practical  efl&cacy  in  a  certain  type  of  experience, 
but  in  the  unconditioned  reality  of  that  which  before  had  been 
real  only  because  it  had  proved  itself  practically  valuable. 
The  intrinsic  certainty,  referred  to  in  this  statement  from  Bar- 
ker, is  the  same  point  we  have  made  regarding  all  practical 
attitudes.  Intrinsic  certainty  is  a  characteristic  attributed 
to  all  successful  experience.  Abstract  the  concepts  from  the 
situation  that  caused  them  to  differentiate,  and  these  special- 
ized elements  are  left,  as  it  were,  in  the  air.  Hence  attention 
is  fixed  upon  them,  and  they  are  held  to  be  valid  in  themselves. 
This  attitude  is  represented  in  many  types  of  emotional  ex- 
perience. The  virtuoso  in  the  sphere  of  emotion  has  ab- 
stracted his  feelings  from  the  situations  in  which  they  belong, 
in  which  they  have  been  in  consciousness  only  as  contributing 
to  an  end  toward  which  the  whole  experience  is  moving.  He 
has  abstracted  them,  we  repeat,  and  brought  them  to  the 
focus  of  attention ;  in  other  words,  given  them  a  validity  of 
their  own.  It  seems  to  us  that  this  procedure  is  parallel  to 
the  one  we  have  been  discussing  in  the  religious  sphere. 

Barker  continues :  "  Consider  the  belief  in  the  miraculous 
birth  of  Christ.  The  absence  of  any  strictly  logical  relation 
/between  the  supernatural  event  and  the  religious  doctrine 
which  is  connected  with  it  is  here  more  patent  than  ever. 
j  That  Christ  was  born  into  the  world  in  a  preternatural  way  is 
in  itself  no  proof  at  all  that  he  was  an  incarnation  of  the  deity, 
although,  of  course,  to  one  already  convinced  of  his  divin- 
ity the  miraculous  birth  has  a  certain  fitness  as  a  symbol." 
As  Barker  further  points  out,  the  symbol  has,  however,  a  cer- 
tain function,  for  faith  comes  in  pulsations,  that  is,  the  practical 
situations  in  which  the  symbol  is  significant  are  not  always  at 
hand,  but  the  attitude  of  readiness  to  meet  them  must  be 


RELIGIOUS   VALUATION  AND   SUPERNATURALISM 


349 


preserved  intact,  and  this  is  the  more  possible,  if  the  tools 
of  the  attitude  can  continue  to  be  held  in  the  foreground  of 
consciousness.  The  mind  is  thus  kept  accessible  to  the 
influences  by  which  faith  can  be  revived.  "The  Christian 
whose  faith  had  grown  weak  attributed  the  lack  of  faith  to 
himself  as  a  fault,  because  he  did  not  doubt  that  the  objects 
of  faith  were  there  to  be  apprehended,  although  he  could  no 
longer  feel  their  reality  and  truth  for  himself."^  In  other 
words,  we  represent  the  values  of  our  past  experiences  by 
means  of  the  conceptual  machinery  they  involve,  apparently 
because  it  can  be  most  easily  isolated.  But  the  mental  con- 
comitants of  a  practical  attitude  can  never  be  isolated  and 
still  be  expected  to  retain  their  original  nature.  It  may  be 
the  only  way  we  can  represent  to  ourselves  that  we  have  had 
the  experience,  but  we  must  nevertheless  not  forget  that  this 
conceptual  framework  is  not  the  original  experience.  The 
only  reality  the  conceptual  structure  or  system  of  dogmas 
has,  its  only  validity,  is  in  pointing  to  a  time  when  practical 
situations  were  very  acutely  felt. 

The  significant  characteristic  of  the  practical  situation 
is  that  it  is  immediate,  and  its  reality  needs  no  logical  proof. 
No  theory  of  the  universe,  no  philosophy,  can  disprove  the 
immediate  appeal  of  the  practical  crisis,  or  rob  it  of  its  total 
independence  of  the  necessity  of  logical  support.  But  as 
soon  as  there  is  felt  to  be  a  necessity  for  proving  the  attitudes 
involved,  the  situation  itself  has  passed  away.  The  whole 
force  and  significance  of  the  concepts  and  attitudes  depends 
upon  the  undisputed  presence  of  the  practical  situation. 
Thus  "the  supernatural  facts  embodied  in  the  creed  do  not 
need  to  be  disproved  to  lose  their  peculiar  value.  This 
value  is  already  lost  when  they  can  be  reasonably  doubted. 

*  "  Factors  in  the  efficiency  of  religious  belief,"  International  Journal  of 
Ethics,  Vol.  XI,  p.  333. 


350 


DEVELOPMENT  OF   RELIGION 


Their  peculiar  function  is  gone  from  the  moment  they  appear 
to  be  doubtfuL"  ^  That  they  are  doubted  means  that  they 
have  lost  their  dynamic  relations  to  experience,  that  practical 
needs  have  changed,  and  hence  that  different  systems  of  con- 
cepts are  now  needed.  The  only  way  to  prove  any  claim  of 
theology  is  to  show  its  vital  relation  to  the  crises  of  life.  No 
one  was  ever  convinced  of  the  truths  of  religion  in  any  other 
way,  nor  has  any  one  who  has  believed  them  from  this  side 
lost  his  faith  by  mere  ratiocination.  If  such  a  one  has  lost 
his  faith,  it  has  been  because  its  vital  contact  with  his  life 
has  ceased,  and  the  work  of  reason  is,  then,  simply  to  show 
that  what  is  left  is  dead.  Our  point,  in  a  word,  is  this,  that 
the  reality  of  a  practical  situation  is  recognized  immediately, 
and  its  tools  are  in  the  same  immediate  manner  regarded  as 
valid  solely  because  of  their  dynamic  connection  with  the 
situation.  There  is  no  other  way  to  prove  their  truth,  and  to 
attempt  to  do  it  otherwise  is  to  admit  that  they  have  lost  their 
value,  and  hence  are  false. 

It  is  suggestive  to  apply  this  point  of  view  to  fhe  doctrine  of 
the  second  coming  of  Christ.  There  is  no  question  but  that 
the  expectation  of  this  event  had  a  very  important  place  in  the 
thought  of  New  Testament  times.  It  is  an  excellent  illustra- 
tion of  the  evolution  of  a  belief  according  to  the  theory  here 
presented.  The  Church  of  to-day,  obliged  to  admit  that  the 
early  Church  was  mistaken  in  the  particular  form  in  which 
it  held  to  this  belief,  holds  it  now  in  a  modified  form.  But  in 
a  sense  the  early  Church  was  not  in  error.  This  belief  in 
the  second  coming  of  Christ  was  a  part  of  a  more  general 
attitude  toward  the  world  and  human  conduct,  and  as  such 
it  served  to  mediate  a  definite  practical  attitude  which  was 
then  significant.     When  this  appropriate  context  disappeared, 

^  "  Factors  in  the  efficiency  of  religious  belief,"  International  Journal  of 
Ethics,  Vol.  XI,  p.  333. 


RELIGIOUS  VALUATION  AND  SUPERNATURALISM     351 

the  belief  was  left  stranded  and,  in  the  eyes  of  later  ages,  it 
was  manifestly  a  mistaken  one,  as  far  as  ontological  fulfilment 
went.  But  the  conviction  that  it  stood  for  an  ontological 
reality  has  led  each  generation  to  reconstruct  the  belief  on  a 
basis  that  at  least  offered  a  possibility  of  fulfilment.  What  is 
true  of  this  particular  belief  is  true  of  all  others  referred  to 
above,  except  that  in  this  one  its  falsity  when  taken  out  of  its 
context,  was  so  self-evident  that  it  had  to  be  reconstructed 
if  it  were  to  continue  to  be  believed.  Of  the  other  dogmas 
it  was  not  so  evident  that  they  were  meaningless  when  thus 
isolated,  and  hence  they  were  more  easily  adhered  to  in  imre- 
constructed  form. 

It  is  likewise  as  regards  the  doctrine  of  inspiration.  The 
individual  who  finds  in  the  Scriptures  a  key  that  interprets  his 
ethical  life  asks  for  no  other  proof  that  they  are  inspired. 
But  the  so-called  logical  proofs  of  inspiration  never  convince 
any  one,  because  when  such  proofs  are  offered  it  is  evidence 
that  inspiration  is  now  taken  as  a  fact  out  of  connection  with 
the  actual  unfolding  of  experience.  It  is  well  known  that  no 
argument  for  the  inspiration  of  the  Scriptures,  for  immortality, 
or  for  the  divinity  of  Christ  is  convincing  to  any  one  who  does 
not  believe  in  them  already  as  facts  of  immediate  experience. 

The  various  phases  of  supernaturalism  that  appear  in  re- 
ligion thus  seem  to  be  but  symbols  of  valuation,  and  cannot  > 
be  taken  as  means  of  establishing  its  truth  or  its  falsity.  Sup/^ 
pose  religious  values  are,  in  part  at  least,  communicated  by 
revelation.  That  fact  would  not  in  any  way  add  to  their 
certainty  or  worthf ulness.  He  who  believes  in  spiritual  beings 
who  can  impart  higher  truth  to  man,  usually  believes  also  in 
bad  as  well  as  in  good  spirits,  and  how  is  he  to  know  but  that 
the  revelation  is  from  evil  spirits,  except  as  it  is  compared  with 
other  things  which  are  regarded  as  good  and,  further,  as  he 
utilizes  that  revelation  in  the  interpretation  of  human  life  and 


352  DEVELOPMENT  OF  RELIGION 

human  relations  ?  On  the  one  hand,  then,  it  is  in  the  intrinsic 
character  of  the  whole  that  its  validity  is  to  be  sought,  and 
on  the  other,  in  its  adaptability  to  social  need  rather  than  in 
any  supposedly  miraculous  events  attending  its  first  expres- 
sion. *'A  religion  which  has  endured  every  possible  trial, 
which  has  outlived  every  vicissitude  of  human  fortunes,  and 
which  has  never  failed  to  reassert  its  power  unbroken  in  the 
collapse  of  old  environments,  .  .  .  declares  itself  by  irresistible 
evidence  to  be  a  thing  of  reality  and  power.  If  the  religion  of 
Israel  and  of  Christ  answers  these  tests,  the  miraculous  circum- 
stances of  its  promulgation  need  not  be  used  as  the  first  proof 
of  its  truth,  but  must  rather  be  regarded  as  the  inseparable 
accompaniments  of  a  revelation  which  has  the  historical  stamp 
of  reality. "  ^  Although  this  author  holds  to  the  idea  of  mi- 
raculous revelation,  it  is  evident  from  these  words  that  he 
believes  also  that  the  character  of  the  values,  especially  as  they 
stand  the  test  of  social  approval,  is  the  really  vital  point.  Let 
it  alone  and  see  if  it  will  come  to  anything  was  the  intent  of 
wise  words  addressed  to  the  Jewish  Sanhedrin  when  that  body 
was  considering  the  advisability  of  adopting  severe  measures 
against  the  new  Christian  sect,  and,  as  far  as  psychology  is 
concerned,  there  is  no  reason  for  demanding  another  test. 
As  long,  however,  as  the  hypothesis  of  supernaturalism  persists 
in  human  thought,  so  long  will  it  be  associated  with  religious 
values  and  so  long  will  the  cultivation  of  the  religious  attitude 
always  afford  more  or  less  stimulus  to  some  types  of  minds  to 
seek  unusual  varieties  of  experiences  and  to  find  in  such  ex- 
periences objective,  tangible  evidence  of  the  verity  of  their 
faith. 

While  the  concept  of  supernaturalism  is  mere  symbolism, 
it  is  probably,  then,  one  that  is  necessary  for  the  expression  of 
higher  valuations.    It  is  an  evidence  of  our  social  nature  and 

*  W.  Robertson  Smith,  The  Prophets  of  Israel,  p.  i6. 


RELIGIOUS  VALUATION  AND   SUPERNATURALISM     353 

of  the  social  form  in  which  we  must  almost  of  necessity  do  our 
thinking.  Inasmuch  as  religious  values  are  of  social  origin, 
and  have  been  elaborated  in  the  various  processes  of  social 
intercourse,  it  is  almost  inevitable  that  they  should  always  be 
most  clearly  and  most  forcefully  expressed  in  terms  of  social 
relationships.  If  we  express  the  reality  of  our  faith  in  life 
and  human  striving  in  some  sort  of  terminology  of  spirits, 
deities,  or  of  a  single  supreme  God,  with  whom  social  inter- 
course is  possible,  and  from  whom  help  may  come  to  us,  as 
help  may  come  from  a  father  or  friend,  we  are  not  going  beyond 
the  possibilities  that  the  universe  affords,  even  though  our 
particular  symbolism  may  be  quite  inadequate  as  an  ultimate 
statement  of  reality. 

Religion  is  essentially  a  faith  that  the  universe,  in  which 
we  have  our  being,  contains  the  elements  that  can  satisfy  in 
some  way  our  deepest  aspirations.  The  concept  of  God  as  a 
father  and  a  friend,  with  whom  communion  is  possible,  is  a 
legitimate  way  for  the  religious  mind  to  symbolize  its  faith  in 
the  reality  of  life.  Li  so  far  as  such  symbolism  satisfies  and 
helps,  it  represents  a  genuine  aspect  of  reality.  It  is  also 
quite  possible  for  the  religious  mind  to  develop  under  the 
stimulus  of  this  method  of  expression.  But,  as  we  have 
said,  the  mode  of  expression  can  never  be  taken  as  a  means 
of  proving  the  validity  of  the  attitude  of  mind  behind  it.* 

^  For  an  admirable  presentation  of  the  theme  of  this  chapter  from  a  theo- 
logical view-point,  see  G.  B.  Foster,  The  Finality  of  the  Christian  Religion, 
pp.  270-275,  et.  al.  E.g.  "We  can  have  eternal  values  without  supernatu- 
ralism,  and  development  without  naturalism,"  p.  275. 


/ 


2A 


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Smith,  George  Adam.    Preaching  of  the  Old  Testament.    New  York, 
1901. 
v.^     Smith,  W.  R.    Prophets  of  Israel. 

The  Religion  of  Semites.     London  and  New  York,  2d  edition,  1894. 

Smyth,  R.  Brough.     Aborigines  of  Victoria.     1878. 

Spencer,  H.    Principles  of  Sociology.     2  vols. 


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ContribuHons  to  Philosophy,  Psychology,  and  Ediication. 
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Australia.     London,  1899. 

Northern  Tribes  of  Central  Australia.    London,  1904. 

Starbuck,  E.  D.     Psychology  of  Religion.    London,  1899. 
Stevenson,  M.   C.     "The  Religious  Life  of  the  Zuni  Child,'*  Fifth 

Annual  Report  of  the  Bureau  of  Ethnology,  p.  539. 
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p.  9. 
"The  Zuni  Indians,   Their  Mythology,  Esoteric  Societies,  and 

Ceremonies,"  Twenty-third  Annual  Report  of  the  Bureau  of  Eth- 
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Stites,  Sara  H.    Economics  of  the  Iroquois.     (Bryn  Mawr  Doctorate 

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INDEX 


Activity,  relation  of,  to  consciousness, 
37;  primacy  of,  40,  45,  65;  differ- 
entiation of,  various  causes,  48  ff.; 
due  to  emotional  overflow,  54;  or 
to  mere  playfulness,  58;  associated 
with  the  development  of  the  value- 
consciousness,  60,  62,  88,  132;  ac- 
cessory forms  of,  10 1 ;  relation  of, 
to  periods  of  suspense  and  relaxation, 
103;  see  also  Practical. 

Adonis,  238. 

Africa,  East,  rudimentary  social  organ- 
ization of  the  Masai,  98 ;  Wakamba, 
social  organization  defective,  108; 
Bantu,  146;  South,  native  races  of, 
58;  Bushmen,  109  ff.;  Kafirs,  82, 
97,  116,  233,  255;  West,  fishing 
ceremony,  56;  objects  of  attention 
among  natives,  60;  unstable  social 
organization,  71,  95,  213,  259;  char- 
acter of  religion,  91,  213;  no  creation 
myths,  apparently,  79. 

Algonkin  manitou,  134  f.,  145, 

"All-father"  concept  of  Australians, 
211;  a  quasi-deity,  250;  a  monothe- 
istic concept,  269. 

Ancestor  worship,  215;  Heam,  L.,  on, 
70;  doubtful  in  West  Africa,  70; 
Leonard's  theory  of,  232,  254; 
among  the  Kafirs,  233-235. 

Anderson,  J.  C,  145. 

Angas,  G.  F.,  294,  298. 

Angekok,  90. 

Animals,  significance  of  primitive  man's 
interest  in,  158  ff.,  231  f.,  234. 

Animism,  not  primitive,  177;  a  sup- 
posed stage  in  the  evolution  of  reli- 
gion, 205,  213;  compared  with  the 
'  concept '  of  mystic  power,  234;  only 
one  factor  in  the  evolution  of  the  god, 
229. 

Aston,  112,  114  f.,  135,  240. 

Attention  and  valuation,  46;  objects  of, 
in  primitive  life,  158  f.,  230  f. 


Attitude,  defim'tion  of,  30;  relation  of, 
to  overt  action,  37,  39,  40,  225; 
dependence  of,  upon  social  heredity, 
41;  not  permanently  existing,  216; 
see  Religion. 

Attitude,  aesthetic,  dependent  upon 
active  impulses,  41;  social  origin  of, 
65,  100 ;  distinguished  from  religious, 
84  f.;  place  of,  in  ceremonies,  85; 
association  of,  with  religious  valua- 
tion, 313. 

Australians,  60,  113;  secret  names  of, 
32;  sacred  objects  of,  61;  relatively 
high  degree  of  social  organization, 
75,  210,  213;  Intichiuma  ceremonies, 
149;  theory  of  reincarnation,  76; 
creation  myths,  79,  251  f.;  aesthetic 
significance  of  ceremonies,  85;  pos- 
sible belief  in  mystic  power,  147  f.; 
churinga  associated  with  mystic 
power,  153  f.;  attitude  toward 
sorcerer,  197;  initiation  ceremonies, 
209;  "all-father"  concept  of,  250  f.; 
moral  status,  early  ideas  of,  288  ff.; 
causes  of  this  opinion,  289;  personal 
virtues,  290  ff. ;  food  restrictions  of, 
291;  chastity,  ideas  of,  regarding, 
293;  marriage  regulations  of,  293; 
treatment  of  wives,  293 ;  of  children, 
296;  infanticide,  296;  treatment  of 
old  and  infirm,  297;  cannibalism, 
298  f. ;  morality  that  of  custom,  299  f. ; 
rules  strictly  enforced,  300 ;  theft,  low 
regard  for  human  life,  fights,  302  f.; 
fear  of  strangers,  302;  life  marked 
by  kindness,  303. 

Bandelier,  A.  F.,  93. 

Bantu,  belief  of,  in  mystic  power,  146. 

Baptism,   Christian,   an  imitative  and 

reduced  mediating  act,  55. 
Barton,  G.  A.,  47,  81,  88,  124  f.,  215, 

224,231,256,258,  271,  284. 
Bicknell,  A.  C,  298. 


363 


3^4 


INDEX 


Biological  method  in  social  interpreta- 
tions, 207. 

Birth  rites  of  the  Zuni,  105. 

Blood-bond  in  the  development  of  reli- 
gion, 69. 

Boas,  F.,  34,  67,  79,  92,  98,  159,  182  f., 
193.  253,  282. 

Bonney,  F.,  295,  297. 

Bourke,  Captain,  129. 

Brinton,  D.,  25,  134. 

Budde,  K.,  271  £f.,  275,  277,  285. 

"Bull-roarers,"  82. 

Bushmen,  playful  and  religioxis  dances 
of,  109  ;  the  practical  and  accessory 
in  religion  of,  no. 

Cameron,  293. 

Ceremonies,  pigeon  snaring,  51  f.; 
deer  catching,  57;  fishing,  56;  of  cir- 
cumcision and  knocking  out  of  teeth, 
76;  imitative  of  animals,  75;  aesthetic 
values  of,  85;  origin  of,  in  social 
and  economic  activities,  99  f.,  104: 
natal,  of  the  Zuni,  104;  primitive 
type  of,  among  Wakamba,  Matabele, 
Korenas,  108;  practical  and  sportive 
character  of,  with  the  Bushmen, 
no  f. ;  ordination,  of  Toda  dairyman, 
122;  rice  and  honey,  of  Todas,  118; 
Toda,  connected  with  the  buffaloes, 
122;  ibid.,  with  salt,  122;  sacrificial, 
of  the  Todas,  123;  social  origin  of 
Semitic,  125;  'form'  and  'content' 
of,  126;  social  character  of,  among 
the  Indians,  127;  rain-making,  129; 
fishing,  of  Thompson  Indians,   129; 

_^^^oman  religious,  an  extension  of 
practical  activities,  129  f.;  Australian 
Intichiuma,  not  necessarily  magical, 
149;  magical,  reflex  origin  of,  179; 
pre-magical,  181  ff.;  initiation,  209; 
new   moon,  significance  of,   241. 

Chance  associations,  r61e  of,  in  the 
development  of  customs,  48. 

Charms,  Malay  hunting,  51  f. 

Christ,  birth  of,  348;  second  coming  of, 

35°- 
Christianity,   primitive,   not  dogmatic, 

342. 
Codrington,  94,  143  f-.  184,  259. 
Coe,  G.  A.,  3,  320. 

Common  element  in  diverse  religions,  32. 
Comparative  religion,  basis  of,  213. 


Conscience  in  primitive  and  modem 
man,  281. 

Consciousness,  relation  of,  to  instinct, 
26;  and  movement,  28,  37;  religious, 
see  Attitude,  Religion. 

Consciousness  of  value,  44  f.;  depen- 
dent upon  mediating  activities,  59  f. 

Content  of  religious  consciousness,  4,  5 ; 
not  unique,  5,  6;  interrelation  of 
function  and,  17. 

Creation  myths,  social  significance  of, 
78  f. 

Creed,  J.  M,,  292,  297. 

Crooke,  W.,  197. 

Crucifixion  sects,  310. 

Culture-hero,  235,  249  ff.,  254;  of 
Australians,  250;  of  Todas,  252; 
of  N.  A.  Indians,  252  f.;  beginnings 
of,  among  the  Melanesians,  253;  not 
convertible  with  ancestor,  254;  rela- 
tion of,  to  social  background,  254. 

Curtiss,  S.  I.  283. 

Customs,  origin  of,  46  £F. ;  r61e  of  chance 
association  in,  48;  adaptation  of 
means  to  end,  53;  sometimes  origi- 
nate in  emotional  overflow,  54,  loi; 
relation  of,  to  playfulness,  58  f.; 
transmission  of,  48. 

Cutten,  G.  B.,  2,  309,  310. 

Dairy  religion  of  Todas,  118;  origin  of 

ritual,  121. 
D'Allonnes,  R.,  335. 
Dances,   moonhght,   of  Bushmen,   58; 

sportive  and  ceremonial,  108. 
Date  palm,  importance  of,  to  Semites, 

126  et  al. 
Davenport,  F.,  2,  310,  312,  316. 
Dawson,  J.,  295,  297. 
Decle,  L.,  108. 
Deer-catching  ceremonies  of  the  Malays, 

57. 
Deity,  deities,  nature  of  concept  of,  12; 
relation  of,  to  phenomena,  12;  idea 
of,  not  universal,  32;  general  and 
local,  in  W.  Africa,  74,  95;  Kafir 
ideas  of,  97;  stranded,  of  Todas,  120, 
225;  primitive,  of  Romans  doubtful 
and  subordinate  to  the  cult,  129; 
mystic  potency  of  the  Indians  at  first 
regarded  as  a  deity,  134;  not  ab- 
stract power  personified,  163;  sup- 
ernatural   beings    not    of    necessity 


INDEX 


365 


deities,  201;  "all-father"  concept 
of  the  Australians,  211;  problem 
of  origin,  nature  of,  223;  intimate 
relation  of,  to  social  and  economic 
interests,  224;  a  natural  develop- 
ment of  social  bodies,  225  f.;  lack 
of  relation  between  various  ideas  of, 
226;  attitude  of  magic  toward,  226  f. ; 
one,  only,  of  the  symbols  of  religious 
valuation,  227;  Frazer's  theory 
of  the  origin  of,  227  f.;  diverse  con- 
ditions contribute  to  the  genesis  of, 
229,  238;  not  developed  from  the 
animistic  view  of  the  world,  230; 
psychological  problem  of  the  origin 
of,  230;  question  of  ancestor  wor- 
ship in  development  of,  252;  remote, 
significance  of,  235  f . ;  definiteness  of, 
dependent  upon  relation  of,  to  pres- 
ent social  interest,  237;  the  'man- 
god,'  239;  primitive  Shinto,  240  f.; 
real  gods  of  Tana,  244;  of  fertihty 
possibly  actual  persons,  245;  rela- 
tion of  regard  for,  to  the  supposition 
of  their  possession  of  mystic  potency, 
248;  Lyall's  theory  of  origin  of,  248; 
culture-heroes  as  embryonic  deities, 
250  f.;  social  'construct,'  254,  256  f., 
265;  symbol  of  valuation,  261,  275; 
not  a  descriptive  concept,  262  f.; 
ideas  of,  lacking  among  tbe  Central 
Australians,  269;  psychological  state- 
ment of  the  theological  problem  of  the 
gradual  revelation  of  the  deity,  276; 
not  a  mere  reflection  of  the  character 
of  the  worshippers,  276;  higher 
types  of,  not  qualitatively  distinct 
from  the  lower,  279,  281;  heathen, 
not  non-ethical,  281;  relation  of, 
to  conduct,  281;  see  Monotheism, 
Yahweh. 

Delacroix,  H.,  2,  310. 

Development  of  types,  218. 

Dewey,  J.,  37,  41,  46,  55.  279. 

Dickinson,  G.  L.,  287. 

Disease,  treatment  of,  by  magic,  194. 

Dixon,  R.,  on  the  Northern  Maidu,  141. 

Dorsey,  G.  A.,  105,  141. 

Duty,  origin  of  sense  of,  42. 

Dyaks,  83,  215. 

Earp,  G.  B.,  294. 

Economic  interests,  82  f.,  u8,  124  f. 


Ellis,  A.  B.,  60,  70,  73,  77,  91,  95,  97, 

215.  235. 

Emotion  and  the  interruption  of  ac- 
tivity, 59;  sometimes  enhanced  by 
overt  acts,  62. 

End,  the  religious,  preliminary  state- 
ment of,  7. 

Eskimo,  customs  of,  61,  247,  282;  pri- 
vate property  limited,  67 ;  values  of, 
72;  rudimentary  rehgion  of,  73;  no 
creation  myths,  79;  social  and  judi- 
cial assembUes  of,  90,  100;  possible 
belief  in  a  mystic  power,  159;  pre- 
magical  and  pre-religious  rites  of, 
182  f.;  magic  of,  193;  monsters  of 
their  mythology,  origin  of,  242. 

Ethnology  and  psychology  of  religion, 
38. 

Evolution  of  religion,  24,  32,  204  ff.; 
preliminary  questions  regarding,  25, 
30;  not  from  a  primal  instinct,  or 
perception,  25;  relation  of,  to  matrix 
of  activities,  28;  of  attitudes  rather 
than  of  absolute  mentality,  33;  de- 
pendent upon  social  heredity,  33,  86; 
erroneous  conception  of  the  problem 
of,  204  f.;  complexity  of,  206;  spu- 
rious evolutionary  series,  206  f . ;  un- 
equal development  of  different  aspects 
of  the  social  body,  208  f . ;  problem 
of,  214;  acquisition  of  momentum 
and  individuality  by  various  reli- 
gious types,  218;  two  points  to  be 
taken  into  account,  220;  relation 
of  to  development  of  individuality, 
221  f.;  problem  of,  in  respect  to 
deities,  226. 

Ewe-speaking  negroes,  70,  91,  97* 

Exogamy,  209. 

Experience  as  projective,  276. 

Fancy,  idle,  in  myth-making,  102. 

Famell,  92,  155  f.,  255. 

Fetichism,  205,  213. 

Finite  vs.  infinite  values,  a  psychologi- 
cal rather  than  an  ontological  dis- 
tinction, 279. 

Fletcher,  A.  C,  on  the  concept  of 
wakonda,  139. 

Food  problem,  import  of,  in  primitive 
life  and  religion,  60,  74,  80;  see 
Todas,  Semites,  Australians,  Ind- 
ians, etc. 


366 


INDEX 


Food  rules,  primitive,  209,  291. 

Fowler,  W.,  129  ff.,  155. 

Fraser,  J.,  291,  293,  297  f. 

Frazer,  G.  F.,  147,  149.  151-  i79.  189, 
227,  239,  241,  243  fif.;  theory  of  magic 
and  religion,  165  fif.;  criticism  of, 
169  f. 

Frey,    Scandinavian     god    of   fertility, 

244- 

Function  the  ground  of  diflferentiation 
of  religious  type  of  consciousness,  6; 
value  of  such  a  statement,  8;  rela- 
tion of,  to  valuation,  15;  two  aspects 
of  the  problem  of,  15;  illustration 
from  aesthetics,  15  f.;  interrelation 
of,  and  content,  17. 

Furness,  177. 

Galton,  F.,  206. 

Giddings,  F.,  46. 

God,  nature  of  relation  to  world,  12  f.; 
development  of  idea  of,  276;  psy- 
chological problem  of,  263,  267 ;  single, 
see  Monotheism;  absolute  goodness 
of,  279;  concept  of,  as  infinitely 
exalted,  343  f.,  345  f.;  supernatural- 
ism  and  idea  of,  352 ;  see  also  Deity. 

Granger,  F.,  2,  308. 

GriSis,  241. 

Guardian  spirits,  suggestion  of,  among 
the  Kwakiutl,  92 ;  among  the  Maidu, 
141;  among  the  Algonkin,  137. 

Habit,  significance  of,  for  the  valuating 
consciousness,  62;  social,  in  religious 
ceremonial,  113;  see  Todas  and 
Bushmen. 

Haigh,  E.  A.  R.,  rss. 

Hase  and  McDougall,  211,  231,  233, 
269. 

Head-hunters,  main  interest  of,  83,  215, 
238:  naming  of  chief's  son,  117. 

Hearri,  L.,  on  ancestor  worship,  70. 

Henderson,  J.,  290,  297. 

Henotheism,  205. 

Hetherwick,  A.,  146. 

History  of  religion,  38. 

Hobhouse,  L.  T.,  240,  249,  312. 

Hoflfding,  H.,  30,  46,  216,  261  f.,  277. 

HoUis,  A.  C,  98,  146. 

Hottentots,  social  element  in  ceremo- 
nials of,  109. 

Howison,  13. 


Howitt,  A.,  209,  213,  250  f.,  269,  SQi, 

2966?. 
Howitt,  J.  N.  B.,  140,  159. 
Huron,  festivals  of,  82. 


tions    based 


upon 


Ideational    constructions 
active  attitudes,  225. 

Indians,  North  American,  creation 
myths  of,  79;  Huron  festivals,  82; 
Kwakiutl  social  organization,  92; 
Pueblo,  93,  104;  Navaho,  62,  85; 
Moqui,  102,  127;  Wichita,  105; 
Iroquois,  festivals,  106;  orenda  of, 
140;  among  various  other  tribes,  141; 
Thompson,  107;  Algonkin  manitou, 
134;  Siouan  wakonda,  138  f.; 
Pawnee,  141  f.;  Lillooet,  hunting 
ceremonies  of,  247;  burial  cere- 
monies, 219. 

Individual  not  at  first  differentiated 
from  the  group,  221  ;  development 
of,  as  dependent  upon  unusual  ex- 
periences, 330  f . 

Individuality  of  social  groups  and 
strains,  218. 

Initiation  ceremonies,  209;  social  sig- 
nificance of,  75. 

Inspiration,  dogma  of,  351. 

Instinct  as  basis  of  religion  criticised, 
25;  referred  to,  205;  natvu-e  of,  25  f.; 
relation  to  consciousness,  26;  real 
intent  of  instinct  theories  of  religion, 
26;  Marshall's  theory,  27;  possible 
truth  in  instinct  theories,  31;  pos- 
sibly refers  to  the  primitive  concept 
of  a  mystic  potence,  136. 

Interest  in  animals  and  vegetation,  sig- 
nificance of,  158  ff.,  230  ff.;  relation 
of,  to  concept  of  mystic  potency, 
234;   in  spirits,  234. 

Intichiuma  ceremonies  of  Australians, 
nature  of,  149  f. 

Iroquois,  82,  106,  140. 

Ishtar,  126,  138, 

Isis,  258. 

James,  W.,  13,  37,  306,  310,  319,  32a, 

326. 
Janus,  origin  of  cult,  130. 
Japanese  religion,   social  character  of, 

91;     attitude    on    cleanliness,     112; 

social  character  of  ceremonies,  1 14  f  • ; 

feeble  concept  of  personality,  241. 


INDEX 


367 


Jastrow,  M.,  25,  28  f.,  31,  155,  205. 

Jevons,  F.,  129,  173  f.,  191;  on  pre- 
magical  rites,  184. 

Jones,  R.  M.,  308,  310,  333. 

Jones,  W.,  134  f.,  142. 

Judd,  C.  H,  37. 

Judicial-social  gatherings  of  the  Es- 
kimo, 90,  100. 

Kaempfer,  114. 

Kafirs,  economic  interests  of,  82 ;  social 
structure  rudimentary,  97;  religio- 
practical  acts  of,  116;  ancestor  wor- 
ship of,  233;  far-off  deity  of,  235. 

Kenites,  deity  of,  271. 

Kidd,  D.,  98,  193,  233. 

Kingsley,  M.,  60,  71,  77;  on  ancestor 
worship  of  W.  Africans,  232. 

Kinship,  importance  of,  for  the  develop- 
ment of  religion,  69. 

Korenas,  initiation  ceremonies  of,  108. 

Kwakiutl  Indians,  religion  of,  depend- 
ent upon  social  organization,  92. 

Ladd,  G.  T.,  177. 

Lang,  A.,  165,  269. 

Leonard,  A.  G.,  158,  162,  193,  232  f., 

236. 
Leuba,  J.  H.,  2,  3,  38,  320,  326,  333. 
Lillooet  Indians,  247. 
Logical  outcome  of  the  rejection  of  the 

instinct  theory  of  religion,  42. 
Lovejoy,  A.  O.,  135,  146. 
Luck,  belief  in,  48,  163  f. 
Lumholtz,  C,  292,  29s,  302 
Lyall,  C,  155,  191,  248. 

McDonald,  116. 

McGee,  138  f. 

Mackenzie,  296. 

Magic,  origin  of,  54,  176;  'magic 
power'  among  the  Australians,  147  f.; 
religion  and,  165  ff.;  not  futile  in 
eyes  of  primitive  man,  170  ff.;  in- 
ferior races  supposed  to  be  adepts  in, 
170,  197  f.;  reflex  origin  of  magic 
rites,  179;  theory  of,  developed  from 
antecedent  spontaneous  acts,  181; 
pre-magical  rites,  181;  at  first  indis- 
tinguishable from  the  most  primitive 
religious  rites,  182;  illustrations  of, 
from  The  Golden  Bough,  189;  prim- 
itive  man's  science,    190    f.;    anti- 


social and  individualistic,  191  f., 
19s;  treatment  of  disease  by,  194; 
attitude  of,  toward  spirits  and  deities, 
226;  interrelations  of,  with  religion, 
228;   magician  as  embryo  god,  244. 

Malay  customs,  49  f.;  deer-catching, 
ceremony  of,  57  f.;  apologies  of,  to 
hunted  animals,  247. 

Mana,    Melanesian    concept    of,    219," 
243  ;*  nature  of,  143 ;  associated  with 
persons  and  spirits,  144;    compared 
with  the  Indian  idea  of  manitou,  145 ; 
see  Manitou,  and  Mystic  power. 

'Man-god,'  real  natiure  of,  239,  247  f. 

Manitou,  nature  of,  134;  action  of,  137; 
compared  with  ntana,  145;  see  also 
Mystic  power. 

Marett,  243. 

Marshall,  W.  E.,  118. 

Marshall,  H.  R.,  27,  205. 

Masai,  rudimentary  religion  of,  98. 

Matabele,  social  and  religious  practices 
of,  108. 

Matthews,  W.,  128. 

Means  and  ends,  adaptation  of,  place  in 
the  development  of  customs,.  48. 

Mediating  activities,  place  of,  in  the 
development  of  the  valuating  con- 
sciousness, 59. 

Melanesians,  94;  belief  of,  in  mana^ 
143  f.,  243.  253,  259. 

Mental  contents,  moments  in  an  active 
process,  39. 

Mentality  vs.  mental  capacity,  40; 
functional  character  of,  321. 

Menzies,  A.,  7. 

Miraculous  birth  of  Christ,  348. 

Mockler-Ferryman,  67. 

Momentum  of  religious  strains,  218. 

Monotheism,  295 ;  beginnings  of,  given 
a  spurious  difficulty,  267;  psycho- 
logical, 270;  of  the  Hebrews  not 
unique,  185,  271;  not  of  the  meta- 
physical type,  273;  practical,  274; 
real  problem  of  Hebrew,  concerns 
the  development  of  the  character  of 
Yahweh,  275;  psychological  problem 
of,  275;  ethical,  an  outcome  of 
reflection,  276  f.,  280  f.,  285;  higher 
conceptions  not  qualitatively  dif- 
ferent from  the  lower  types,  279. 

Moonlight  dances  indifferently  sport- 
ive and  ceremonial,  109  f. 


2,6S 


INDEX 


Moqm,  Snake  dance  of,  128. 

Morality,  identity  of,  with  law  and 
religion  in  primitive  society,  91, 
287  fif. 

Morals,  reflective,  dependent  upon  the 
social  context,  280;  concept  of  a 
deity  a  positive  factor  in,  281 ;  posi- 
tive significance  of  primitive  Hebrew, 
282,  cf.  304;  relation  of,  to  religion, 
287  f.;  Avistralian,  that  of  custom, 
299. 

Morgan,  L.  H.,  106. 

Morris,  M.,  47,  83,  215. 

Mvu-isier,  310. 

Mystic  power,  attributed  to  animals, 
159;  associated  with  tools,  162; 
attributed  to  persons  and  spirits,  144, 
243  f.,  247  f.;  'the  Mystery'  of  the 
N.  A.  Indians,  and  other  peoples, 
134  £F.;  contrasted  with  magic  power,  ^ 
147;  involved  in  Australian  totem- 
ism,  150  f.;  in  religion  of  Greece  and 
Rome,  154;  in  Semitic  religion,  155; 
basis  of  religion  and  magic,  156;  the 
notion  wide-spread,  156;  possible 
origin  of  the  concept,  157  ff.,  239  f.; 
not  a  religious  concept,  163;  truly 
primitive,  163;  modem  aspects  of 
this  belief,  163  f.;  connection  of, 
with  the  ritual  of  the  scape-goat,  240 ; 
the  explanation  of  all  skillful  acts, 
140,  242  et  al.;  power  of  the  primi- 
tive deity  of  this  character,  248; 
suggestions  of,  in  the  Old  Testament, 
248;  association  of,  with  the  culture- 
hero,  252  £f. 

Nansen,  43,  67,  209,  242. 

Napier,  109. 

Nassau,  56,  62,  71  f.,  73,  77,  86,  91, 

196,  205,  233,  235,  268. 
Navaho,  62,  85,  128  f. 
Niger  tribes,  158,  162;  sorcery  of,  198; 

interest  of ,  in  natural  objects,  231  f.; 

ancestor  worship  of,  254. 

Objective    reality,    suggestion    as    to 

nature  of,  342. 
Objects  of  religious  valuation,  6. 
Orenda,  an  Iroquois  concept,  140;    see 

also  Manitou  and  Mystic  power. 
Osborn,  343. 
Osiris,  238,  258. 


Palmer,  295. 

Pantheism,  205. 

Parker,  L.,  211,  251,  269. 

Pathological,  difficulty  of  defining,  307 ; 
the  unusual  and  the,  308;  identifica- 
tion of,  with  what  is  hard  to  define 
intellectually,  308;  used  here  as 
synonymous  with  the  unusual,  308; 
positive  significance  of,  in  religious 
development,  330. 

'Perception  of  the  infinite,'  25,  28,  31; 
connection  of,  with  mystic  potence 
concept,  136. 

Perry,  R.  B.,  262. 

Personality,  sense  of,  vague  in  primi- 
tive life,  66  f.,  241;  development  of, 
221,  330. 

Personification,  nature  of,  242  f.;  does 
not  explain  origin  of  deities,  255. 

Pfleiderer,  O.,  21,  259. 

Piacular  sacrifice,  relation  of,  to  the 
sacrificial  meal,  216. 

Piepenbring,  C,  346. 

Pierce,  A.  H.,  323. 

Playful  activities,  37;  as  basis  for  cus- 
toms, 58  f.;  underlying  religious 
ceremonies,  100  et  al. 

Political  structure  and  religion,  89  f., 
96  f.,  258  f. 

Powell,  Major,  on  Indian  medicine 
practices,  203. 

Practical  activities,  37,  103;  religion 
secondary  to,  214;  significance  of,  in 
origin  of  ceremonies,  47,  100;  need 
no  explanation  here,  100;  in  Iro- 
quois festivals,  106;  in  Zuni  natal 
ceremonies,  104  f . ;  in  construction  of 
Wichita  lodges,  105;  religious  sig- 
nificance of,  among  the  Wakamba, 
Bushmen,  Kayans,  116  f,;  special 
case  of  the  Todas,  117  flf.;  in  religion 
of  the  ancient  Romans,  120  f.;  see 
Activity. 

Pratt,  J.  B.,  4. 

Pre-religious  character  of  primitive 
customs,  60. 

Primitive  man,  probable  mental  statiis, 
33;  suggestibility  of,  317;  nature  of 
superiority  of  culture  races  to,  34; 
character  of,  according  to  Frazer, 
165  ff.;  Jevons'  theory  of,  174; 
hypothetical  character  of,  176  f.; 
the  universe  of,  the  tribe,  270;  vague 


INDEX 


369 


concept  of  personality,  see  Personal- 
ity. 

Prince,  M.,  235. 

Psychological  concepts,  na'ive  use  of,  29. 

Psychology  of  religion,  problems  of, 
I,  7,  16,  22,  23,  32,  43,  266  f.;  nature 
of  the  work  thus  far  done,  2  flf.; 
question  of  the  material  or  content  of, 
4  ff.,  24;  differentiation  of,  from 
general  psychology,  5  f.;  functional 
statement,  8  f.;  relation  of  the  hy- 
pothesis of  supernaturalism  to,  9, 
18;  content  vs.  value  in,  14;  limita- 
tion of,  to  existential  aspects  unjusti- 
fiable, 18;  preliminary  to  all  other 
treatments  of  religion,  19,  22;  not 
confined  to  thoughts,  feelings,  and 
impulses,  38;  significance  of  objec- 
tive factors  in,  42 ;  attitude  of,  toward 
valuations  of  the  religionist,  264  f.; 
instinct-theories  of  religion  pseudo- 
psychological,  26;  and  evolution  of 
religion,  32;  possibility  of,  36;  not 
to  be  separated  from  the  ethnology  of 
religion,  38. 

Pueblo,  complicated  religious  life  of,  93 ; 
politics  and  religion  of,  interwoven, 
104;  natal  ceremonies  of,  104. 

Rain-making  ceremonies,  significance 
of,  129;  maker  of,  as  an  embryo 
god  of  fertility,  247. 

Reacting  organism,  a  factor  in  forma- 
tion of  religious  types,  127. 

Reclus,  E.,  247. 

Rehearsal  of  combat,  55. 

Reincarnation,  Australian  theory  of, 
76. 

Religion,  see  Psychology  of.  Attitude, 
etc.;  statements  of,  practical  not 
existential,  12;  evolution  of,  24  f., 
204  f.;  complexity  of  problem  of, 
206,  see  Evolution;  relation  of,  to 
character  of  social  organization,  94  f . ; 
primitive,  no  longer  extant,  24;  di- 
verse forms  of,  not  to  be  arranged 
serially,  206,  208,  217;  question  of 
relative  superiority  of  different 
strains  of,  212;  not  directly  related 
to  the  biological  struggle  for  exist- 
ence, 26;  not  merely  a  belief  in  cer- 
tain facts,  an  appreciative  attitude, 
31;     common    element    in    diverse 


forms,  32;  corporate  religion  not 
merely  the  outcome  of  subjective, 
38,  41;  valuations  of,  social  origin 
of,  63  f.;  acts  of,  primarily  social, 
88,  204;  attitude  a  'construct', 
28,  37,  339;  not  an  ultimate  datum, 
29;  an  attitude,  36;  not  biologically 
inherited,  36;  distinguished  from 
the  aesthetic  attitude,  84;  rudimen- 
tary phases  of  Eskimo,  73 ;  primitive, 
undifferentiated,  81,  contrasted  with 
modem  types,  85  f.;  and  political 
structiure,  89  f.,  97  f.;  relation  of 
valuations  of,  to  practical  valuations, 
121;  secondary  to  social  processes, 
127;  Roman,  related  to  practical 
activities,  129  f.;  magic  and,  165, 
182;  Frazer's  theory  of,  171  f.; 
Jevons'  theory  of,  173  f.;  relation  of, 
to  morals,  287  ff. ;  relation  of,  to 
pathological  phenomena,  306  £f.; 
genuine  expressions  of,  not  to  be 
narrowed  down  to  supposedly  de- 
sirable types,  311;  view  of  reality, 
329;  concepts  of,  symbols  of  valua- 
tion, not  descriptive  terms,  340. 

Rink,  90. 

Ritual  the  fundamental  element  in 
Roman  religion,  131. 

Rivers,  W.  H.  R.,  94,  114,  117  ff.,  192, 
212,  237,  240,  252. 

Romans,  primitive  religion  of,  129,  155. 

Roth,  W.,  293,  299. 

Royce,  J.,  2. 

Rudimentary  religion,  possibility  of, 
among  the  Todas,  118;  among  the 
Eskimo,  73;  of  the  Australians,  see 
Australians. 

Sacredness,  primitive  notions  of,  and 
social  origin  of,  75 ;  ideas  of,  among 
the  Todas,  120;  Australians,  61, 
300  f. 

Sacred  objects  and  places,  61,  77. 

Sacrifice,  Toda,  a  social  function,  94, 
123;  piacular,  216;  Shinto,  an  out- 
growth of  social  activity,  115;  not 
based  upon  communion,  115. 

Saussaye,  de  la,  256,  259  f. 

Schroeder,  T.,  310. 

Science,  universality  of  postulates  of, 
9  f.;  gaps  in  scientific  account  of 
the  world  not  to  be  filled  by  noumena, 


2B 


370 


INDEX 


10,  12;  the  interrelation  of  the 
•known,'  10,  11;    closed   system  of, 

11,  18;  facts  of  religious  experience 
subject  to  formulation  by,  11,  14; 
instinct-theories  not  based  upon,  25  f. 

Secret  names,  32,  75;  societies,  92. 

Semites,  60;  tribal  religion  of,  67; 
concept  of  kindred  and  social  inter- 
course, 69;  social  character  of  eco- 
nomic activities,  80  f.,  47,  238;  reli- 
gion of,  related  to  social  structure, 
124;  phallic  element  in  religion  of, 
126  f.;  religion  and  magic  among, 
200  f . ;  dependence  of,  upon  the  date 
palm,  215;  worship  of  kings,  246  f,; 
see  Yahweh. 

Semon,  R.,  302. 

Shinto,  attitude  of,  on  cleanliness,  113; 
nature  of  sacrifice  in,  115;  primitive 
deities  of,  240. 

Sin,  primitive  notion  of,  282;  identity 
of,  with  higher  notions,  283. 

Skeat,  W.,  50,  57,  90,  314. 

Smith,  G.  A.,  271,  278  f.,  286. 

Smith,  W.  R.,  47,  67,  69,  81,  155,  200  f., 
256,  271,  282.  ..'>^' 

Smyth,  R.  B.,  295,  302. 

Snake  dance  of  the  Moqui,  128. 

Sorcery,  see  Magic,  Religion,  etc. 

Social  heredity  and  religion,  33,  86  f., 
221;  organization  of  the  Kwakiutl, 
92;  enjoyment  in  tribal  ceremonies, 
62;  activity  of  groups,  loiff.;  origin 
of  religious  valuation,  63  ff.,  224; 
vs.  individual  need  in  religious  valu- 
ation, 66;  group  primitive  man's 
universe,  68,  269  f.;  organization 
and  primitive  religion,  74,  92;  qual- 
ity of  religion  seen  in  Toda  sacrifice, 
94, 124;  processes  primary  in  certain 
Indian  ceremonies,  127;  in  Semitic 
religion,  200;  determination  of 
deities,  250  f.,  255  fif.;  group  the 
primary  postulate,  102;  in  the 
development  of  religion  as  over 
against  magic,  199  f.;  groups,  in- 
dividuality of,  218;  organization 
defective,  Wakamba,  108;  Kafirs, 
97;  Masai,  98;  Tshi-speaking  peo- 
ples, 70,  73;  Thompson  Indians,  107; 
organization  and  economic  necessity, 
208;  bodies,  unequal  development  of 
various  aspects  of,  208. 


Spencer  and  Gillen,  55,  75  f.,  147  f-,  iS4, 
183,  187,  194,  210,  ai3,  293,  294, 
298. 

Spencer,  F.  C,  91,  104. 

Spirit-beliefs  in  W.  Africa,  70  f.,  95; 
Eskimo,  73;  Malay,  73;  Kwakiutl, 
92 ;  Thompson  Indians,  142 ;  Maidu, 
141. 

Spirit,  Holy,  at  first  a  practical  con- 
cept, 344. 

Starbuck,  E.  D.,  2. 

Stevenson,  M.  C,  91,  105. 

Stites,  S.  H.,  82. 

StoU,  O.,  3,  310- 

Stoops,  J.  D.,  265. 

Stow,  58,  108,  117,  241. 

Subconscious,  the  factor  of  the,  in 
religious  valuation,  322  ff.;  positive 
significance  of,  326  ff. 

Subjective  states  not  primary,  35. 

Sumner,  N.  G.,  48,  164. 

Supernaturahsm  in  the  interpretation 
of  religious  consciousness,  6;  logic 
of,  8;  inconsistent  with  the  psy- 
chology of  religion,  9;  as  explana- 
tion and  symbol  of  religious  valua- 
tion, 319,  351;  apparent  support  of, 
by  some  recent  psychologists,  302  f. 

Supernatural,  the,  conception  of,  among 
the  Eskimo,  73;  Jevons'  theory  as 
to  the  primitive  notion  of,  174;  a 
moment  in  the  development  of  expe- 
rience, 175. 

Taboo,  209. 

Tammuz,  126. 

Teit,    J.,    107,    129,    142,    184,    247. 

ass- 
Temperament  not  a  cause  of  religious 
variation,  74. 

Teutons,  deities  of,  259  f. 

Theal,  109. 

Thomas,  W.  I.,  33  f.,  49,  209. 

Thompson  River  Indians,  primitive 
social  organization,  107;  salmon 
ceremonies  of,  129;  concept  of  mys- 
tic power,  142;  rites  of,  183;  cultvure- 
heroes  of,  253. 

Tiele,  25,  29,  31,  205. 

Todas,  economic  interests  of,  82,  94, 
113,  212,  219;  dairy  religion  of,  117; 
sacrifice,  123;  magic,  192;  attitude 
of,   toward  sorcery,    198;    far-away 


INDEX 


371 


deities  of,  236,  238;  belief  of,  in 
mystic  power,  240. 

Topographical  conditions  affecting  re- 
ligion, 74. 

Totemic  organizations,  92,  209. 

Totemism,  association  of,  with  mystic 
power,  150. 

Tribe,  gods  of,  67,  268. 

Trinity,  concept  of,  not  at  first  a  dogma, 

343- 
Trumbull,  H.  C,  205,  268. 
Tshi-speaking  negroes,  60,  70. 
Tufts,  J.  H.,  41,  65,  279. 
Tylor,  E.  B.,  208,  218,  280,  317. 

Ultimate  nature  of  religious  concepts 

indeterminate,  266. 
Uncapapa,  107. 
Universe,   meaning  of,   indeterminate, 

339- 

Unusual  experiences  regarded  as  proofs 
of  a  supernatural  world,  309;  com- 
mon in  all  grades  of  religion,  309; 
dependent  upon  religious  types  of 
values,  313;  relation  of,  to  theory 
of  supernaturalism,  314;  positive 
significance  of,  in  religious  develop- 
ment, 330. 

Uzzah,  248,  283. 

Value-appreciation  and  value- judg- 
ment, 44;  relation  of,  to  intermedi- 
ate activities,  45,  215;  dependent 
upon  stable  and  compact  social 
body,  84;  symbolized  by  deities,  262 ; 
symbolism  of,  among  the  Todas,  120. 

Valuating  attitude  relatively  primary, 
32,  44;  origin  of,  44  ff. ;  social,  63  f.; 
range  of,  32;  in  religious  develop- 
ment, 30,  32,  265  f.,  314  f.;  a  social 
category,  64;  instinct-theories  of 
religion  interpreted  from  the  point 
of  view  of,  31;  specific,  always  one- 
sided, 219. 

Value-consciousness,  distinction  be- 
tween finite  and  infinite  values  a 
logical  one,  280;  psychological  ex- 
planation of  religious,  320  ff. ;  rela- 
tion of,  to  the  subconscious,  323  f. ; 
excluded  by  some  from  scientific 
treatment,  14;  scientific  attitude 
toward   religious   values,    14;    sym- 


bolic character  of,  14;  possibility 
of  a  natural  history  of,  14,  279;  rela- 
tion of,  to  a  functional  treatment,  15; 
difference  between  scientific  and 
religious  points  of  view  with  reference 
to,  15,  16;  assumed  fixity  of,  20; 
expression  of,  in  personal  terms,  226, 
229,  262;  basis  of,  usually  too  nar- 
rowly conceived,  229;  character  of 
religious,  as  a  basis  of  unusual  ex- 
periences, 313;  relation  of  religious, 
to    particular    types    of    experience, 

311  f. 
Variations  not  random,  218. 
Vegetation,  primitive  interest  in,  231. 
Vesta,  origin  of  cult,  131. 

Wakamba,  108. 

Wakonda,    138   ff.;     see   also    Mystic 

power. 
Ward,  J.,  10. 
Webster,  H.,  93. 
Wichita,  method  of  constructing  lodges, 

105. 
Wissler,  C,  139,  161,  188. 
Whirlwind  an  expression  of  wakonda, 

139- 
Worship  an  extension  of  social  activity, 

255- 

Yahweh,  89,  248;  development  of,  271; 
cult  of,  not  always  distinguished 
from  that  of  the  Baals,  272;  a  war 
and  storm  god,  272;  vinfolding  of 
character  of,  dependent  upon  the 
development  of  human  character, 
276;  progressively  built  up  rather 
than  revealed,  277;  diflSculty  of 
accounting  for  the  ethical  attributes 
of,  not  insuperable,  278;  develop- 
ment of  the  concept  of  the  holiness 
of,  284;  origin  of  the  paternal  and 
conjugal  symbolism  applied  to,  284; 
social  significance  of  the  justness  of, 
284  f.;  highest  development  of, 
definitely  related  to  the  primitive 
social  life  of  Israel,  285. 

Yoruba-speaking  negroes,  70,  91,  97, 
232 ;  belief  of,  in  far-off  gods,  235. 

Zuni,  104  f. 


V 


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